


Errant

by pontmercy44



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Slow Burn, Solo family fun, Way fluffier than it sounds
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-14
Updated: 2016-04-09
Packaged: 2018-05-20 08:35:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 22
Words: 46,459
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5999130
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pontmercy44/pseuds/pontmercy44
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>ˈerənt<br/>1. erring or straying from the proper course or standards.<br/>2. traveling in search of adventure.<br/>***<br/>Ben is Snoke's private physician and occasional enforcer. Rey is a patient with an enigmatic past who wakes up in the ICU and claims she doesn't remember whatever it is that could get her killed. The more he tries to learn her secrets, the more danger he puts her in. But for some reason, he can't resist.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: As a brief note, I have set this in real, modern city and use the name “Ben” because I just can’t buy into an AU universe where everything sounds like a fantasy. Also note that I have added warning tags - I by no means would consider my work to be graphic or disturbing, but I'd like to give fair warning that certain subjects will be touched on.

“I have a favor to ask you.” Snoke’s voice was low and raspy, from years of smoking cigars and drinking gin. He didn’t move from his position, reclining in bed, but his eyes followed his physician around the room. The late afternoon air was golden, specks of dust floating in it. Snake’s residence was one of those old mansions off of St. Charles that had been passed down for generations – opulent and dusty, no matter how many white-shoed, uniformed cleaning ladies came each week. When the younger man didn’t answer him, or turn from the bar cart, which was fully stocked with prescriptions, rather than alcohol, Snoke made a low noise of amusement. “Ben.”

Ben half-turned, pretending to take a long time to fill the syringe he was holding. “Yes?”

“I know you dislike doing my… errands.” Snoke studied him, eyes hooded behind deep, wrinkled folds of flesh. He had the lilt of a native New Orleanian – the old money kind who secluded themselves in the Garden District in moldering mansions. 

“It depends on the errand.” Ben kept his voice studiously steady, moving towards the bed. “I would prefer to keep our arrangement… confidential.” He grasped the elderly man’s arm and located a vein, efficiently inserting the syringe. 

“You would prefer to keep your day job.” Snoke still sounded amused, but Ben knew better than to disregard the hard edge in his voice. “My offer of full-time employment still stands.”

“I wouldn’t have enough to do.” Ben deflected. 

“There is a great need for discrete medical care in my organization.” 

Ben was silent for a moment, knowing the futility of arguing with Walter Snoke. He had been his private physician for four years, making frequent trips to the old house. He never could shake his feeling of discomfort here. It was usually dark, and hot. Today the humidity was suffocating, as was the silence that stretched between them. 

While their relationship was, in many ways, impersonal, he had been subject to Snoke’s fits of rage occasionally. Snoke was an old, fragile man. His bodyguard – sitting just outside the partially opened French doors, was not. Ben had learned that the hard way, three and a half years ago, when he’d stupidly protested that he preferred to keep his “private practice” separate from his attending hours. 

“What was that favor you wanted?” He decided to appease Snoke – appear eager to do what he was sure would be an unpleasant task, to avoid being drawn into an argument about full-time employment. 

“At Touro. There’s a girl who’s been admitted today. She’s in the ICU. Room 174.”

“All right.”

“I want her to stay quiet when she wakes up.” Smoke said quietly, wrinkled fingers folding. “If she wakes up. You understand?”

“Yes.” 

***

“Room 174? You want to add that to your rotation?” The nurse raised her brow, fingers holding onto the manila folder. 

“Dr. Lin asked me to. Family emergency.” Ben said coolly. Lying never came easily to him, regardless of how often he did it. His ears tinged pink despite his best efforts. Luckily, the nurse didn’t seem to notice it. She handed over the file. 

“Well, don’t stay too late. She’s still asleep.” She hesitated, glancing at the bags under his eyes. “And you need rest.”

Ben lifted his coffee cup as a way of response, tucking the file under his arm and trudging down the hallway to Room 174. The ICU was not his usual domain, and now, at night, it was quiet and dark. He preferred the constant bustle of the Emergency Room, or the still, precise silence of the operating room. Touro had all of the grandeur and gravitas one might expect from a hospital continuously operated for over 150 years. It wasn’t slick and modern, but it felt hallowed. Ben liked that. He’d moved from the East Coast down to New Orleans specifically for that reason – the city’s grittiness, it’s distinctly gothic character, enchanted him.  
He’d arrived at Room 174. He told himself that he’d only put off coming to Room 174 until after his surgery because he didn’t want to admit that he was reluctant to go there at all. He glanced down at the file. Jane Doe.

Perfect. 

He pushed open the door, flicked on the lamp in the corner, and plopped into the plastic-y arm chair provided for patient’s families. This girl, whoever she was, had no family. Probably. He studied her in the dim light, occasionally glancing down at her chart as if to verify its accuracy. Female, early twenties, white. No identification card on her apparently, but plenty of scrapes and scratches. According to the chart, bruised ribs, and a sprained ankle. Injury to the neck – likely the result of the large chunk of hair that had been pulled out, leaving her scalp bleeding. More pressing, there was a minor trauma to the head. 

The other notes in the file were far more interesting to Ben. Tox screen negative. Malnourished. Rape kit performed. Evidence of recent sexual assault. Ben squinted at her. 

While he purposefully did not avail himself of the details of Snoke’s line of work, he could guess. A prostitute. Attacked by a client, perhaps, or her pimp. Snoke’s employee? He’d prefer not to think about that. 

In any case, with the head trauma being what it was, Snoke probably had no reason to worry. He stood up, stretching. She likely wouldn’t remember anything when she woke up. He’d just have to be the first person she spoke to, to ensure that. He dragged his chair closed to her bed. She wouldn’t remember anything. And he’d be spared the necessity of threatening her, confusing her, or worse. 

Up close, her face looked very young and drawn, the cheekbones almost sunken. Angry red stitches caught on the edge of her lips, and black bruise bloomed around her left eye. Older, yellowed bruises colored her jaw. She was frowning even in her sleep. Tapping the lip of his coffee, Ben leaned backwards. He was officially off the clock until his next shift, and Snoke would not want to see him until this job was done. He had all the time in the world. He could wait. 

***

She opened her eyes, and it was too bright. The air felt dry and stale and it made her suddenly cough, violently. 

“You’re awake.” She didn’t have the energy to lift her head and see who had spoken. It hurt too much to move. She distantly heard the sound of someone moving around the room and instinctively shrank back as he leaned over her. 

“Relax.” He was blocking the early morning light from the window, but she could tell her was frowning, somehow. “I’m Doctor Solo. You’re at Touro Infirmary in New Orleans.” He moved to the end of the bed, flicking up her blankets and sheets to her ankles. She tried to jerk away when his hands unceremoniously grasped her ankle, and she groaned in pain. 

“Try to stay still.” He was avoiding her eyes, her whole ankle fitted in the palm of his hand “Your ankle is sprained.” He touched the top of her foot. “Can you feel that?”  
She realized she hadn’t spoken. 

“Yes.” She croaked. “It hurts.”

He smiled. “Good. No nerve damage.” He grasped the other foot, the tone of his voice changing. He was making his voice warm, trustworthy, calm – she knew what that meant instinctively. He was trying to get her guards down. “What do you last remember?”

“I – I don’t know.” She gulped, leaned back into the pillow, trying, and failing, to stop the tears that leaked out of the corner of her eyes. “What happened to me?”  
“I’m trying to figure out if you remember that.” His voice was almost soothing, deep and slow. “What is your name?”

“I…” She blinked suddenly, mouth rounded. “I don’t remember.”

“You’ve had a traumatic head injury. That’s normal.” She saw his grip on the end of her hospital bed loosen, and realized his knuckles had been white. For all his obvious efforts to seem unthreatening, she suddenly felt threatened. He was large, leaning over the end of bed like a bird of prey, in black scrubs. Blocking the door. His voice might be purposefully soft, but his eyes were flinty, peering at her. “Do you remember anything?”

“I remember…” She hesitated suddenly, and he noticed it. She’d been pale and sunken, but suddenly her face took on a distinctly gray color. Her lips settled into a straight line, as if she was pinching them closed to keep something in. “I don’t know.”

“You can tell me.” He prodded. 

“I don’t remember anything.” She closed her eyes. “Can I have some food?”

She heard him exhale slowly. “Yes. I’ll send a nurse with food. And more painkillers. We can talk more when you’re fed and rested up.” 

She didn’t open her eyes or say anything, but he could see her jaw clench and unclench, once. Her legs were trembling despite her best efforts to lie still. He could see them, with the blankets still pulled up to her knees. Placing a hand on one shin, he held it still, and she opened her eyes. Their eyes met. He knew that she was lying, and she knew that he knew. 

He pulled the blanket slowly back down over her legs, not breaking her stare. He tucked it around her legs. It should have been a comforting gesture, but it felt more like iron shackles closing around her legs.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note the new warning tags. They pertain to future chapters, but fair game, added now.

Ben shifted on the balls of his feet, chewing a fingernail and watching two police officers talk to the girl in Room 174. Through the scored glass he watched her speak, eyes cast down at her lap. She was sitting up, revitalized by painkillers and bad hospital food. Ben stepped closer to the glass, watching her speak. She looked as guarded as she had been when he’d left her room two hours ago. It made the knot in his belly uncoil a little – Snoke would have his head, he thought, humorlessly, if she let something spill to the cops.

But she wouldn’t he knew. She had no reason to distrust him, her physician, yet she’d clammed up and refused to reveal anything. Why? He leaned closer, eyeing her suspiciously, and felt a jolt of pain on his forehead. He’d unwittingly leaned too far into the glass, unable to look away. He rubbed it, frowning. The police and the girl both turned at the dull thud of his forehead on the glass and she raised a hand as if to wave, wincing at both the red mark on his forehead and his awkward reaction.

The police moved towards the door, and he met them. They closed the door to the girl’s room before speaking to him.

“Doctor Solo?” One of the officers, an older, balding man, gestured to the badge around his neck.

“Yes. I’m Jane Doe’s attending.” He shook their hands. “How can I help you?”

The officer shrugged. “Not much to help with. Says she doesn’t remember being attacked. Did she have anything in her system?"

“No. Can you identify her?”

The female officer shook her head. “No I.D. on her, no matching missing persons report anywhere on the East Coast. No warrants out. No idea who she is. Probably a working girl.”

“Are you going to run a DNA test or fingerprints?” Ben asked, trying to seem nonchalant.

“Not without her permission.” The older officer ran a meaty hand over his bald head. “And she isn’t giving it.”

“She isn’t.” Ben didn’t say it like a question. It didn’t surprise him. They all looked through the glass window. The girl was sitting up in bed, staring – almost glaring – at them through the glass. 

“Did she tell you any different? Maybe worried about getting in trouble if she talks to us?”

“No.” Ben looked back at the officer. “But please call me if you find anything.”

***

He got two Styrofoam cups of coffee and then went back into the girl’s room. Her eyes flicked over him. Some color had been restored to her face, making the bruises stand out a little less. When she didn’t look to be on death’s door, she was very pretty. Still very young looking, he reminded himself.

“You don’t look like a doctor.” Her voice had a faint English accent. He hadn’t really noted that before – he was just taking stock of her now.

Ben handed her a cup of coffee. “I’ve heard I look younger than I am. I try to keep a surgical mask on as much as possible to hide that.”

She cracked a smile at that. “That’s not what I meant. You’re… wearing jeans.”

“I’m not on call.”

“Why are you here?”

“I can’t take a special interest in my patient?”

Her face screwed up at that, and she looked positively sour. “Please do not.”

“Why not?” He leaned back into the chair, hoisting his leg up over his other knee and sipping his coffee.

She didn’t answer him. “How can I check out?”

“You’re in no shape to check out.” He cocked his head at her. “Worried if you stay here people will keep coming by asking questions?”

She flushed. “No.”

“So why didn’t you want to talk to those cops?”

“Same reason I don’t want to talk to you.” She shot back, then quickly recovered. “I don’t remember anything.”

“You’re lying to me.” He observed. “Why? I’m not going to hurt you, or turn you into the police. I could have told them,” he leaned forward for effect. “That you’re a working girl.”

She sniffed. “I am not.”

“Don’t keep lying to me.”

She turned her cheek away from him then, and he could tell he’d made a mistake. There was something proud about this girl. Confronting her with something she probably couldn’t accept about herself was not the way to earn her trust.

“What’s your name?” He changed tactics.

She paused, and her façade cracked. “I don’t know my name.”

“I believe that.” He studied her. “I’m Ben. What do you want me to call you?”

“What does it matter what you call me? I’m going to check out, and we’re never going to see each other again.”

“Well, that’s not exactly true.” He sounded a little dangerous, the friendliness in his voice evaporating. “I really recommend you don’t check out.”

“And if I do?”

“I’d find you.” He met her eyes. “Like I said. I have a personal interest.”

“In me?” She asked, weakly.

“In making sure you don’t end up dead on the streets.” He said, sharply. “No one is looking for you. No one is here at the hospital, sitting at your bedside. Except for me. You have nowhere to go.”

“I can take care of myself.” She muttered. The way she said it led him to believe she really thought she could.

“Obviously.” He snarked. They fell into a terse silence.

“You’re right.” She said, finally. “I don’t know where to go. But I can’t stay here.”

Ben eyed her. He couldn’t shake the nagging feeling that she was hiding something – and it was an inconvenient thing that whatever she was hiding was probably relevant to his employer’s interests. He couldn’t very well leave her to her own devices to wander New Orleans. With his luck, she’d eventually tell someone _something_. No. Better to find out, himself, and gauge whether what she was hiding, what she knew, was dangerous.

“If you insist on checking out – which you will _not_ do until you are more _stable_ \- have your nurse page me first.” He stood up. “I’m going to go home. I’ll check on you again before my next shift.”

She didn’t say anything. He didn’t go home, of course. He didn’t trust her not to make a run for it. He had tried to be subtle, at first, about his interest. Clearly, she had seen through that. From the way she’d evaded his questions he could only assume she’d try to evade his physical presence as soon as she was capable of doing so.

He went to the nurse’s station and asked them to page him if Room 174 tried to leave, and then went to the on call room and flopped onto a lower bunk. His cell phone buzzed. That would be Snoke – his work paged him, and he didn’t have friends.

_Is she awake?_

Ben hesitated for a moment, thinking about how fragile the girl in Room 174 was. She was infuriating, both because she refused to tell him what she knew, and because she insisted on having an attitude about it. But he could admire her stubbornness, in a way. And he was curious, now.

_I'm taking care of it._

He tossed the phone onto the floor and closed his eyes. She wasn’t going anywhere fast.

***

He must have been more tired than he had thought. It was seven in the evening when he woke up. Cursing, Ben sat up, promptly smacking his head on the upper bunk. “God damn it.”

He checked his cell phone, first thing, by habit. No more texts from Snoke. He exhaled slowly, reaching for his pager, clipped to the hip of his scrubs, then grunted. “Oh, fuck.” He wasn’t wear scrubs. He didn’t have the pager on him.

When he made it to Room 174, the girl was gone.

“Where is she?” He practically snarled at the nurse who was stripping the sheets.

“Insisted on being discharged.” The woman shrugged. “About fifteen minutes ago.”

“Damnit, damnit, fuck, fuck, shit.” Ben mumbled as he strode to the elevator as quickly as he could, his long legs eating up the corridor. Panic was creeping up his chest from his stomach. The thought of failing in this simple task was frightening enough – but moreso was the certainty he had that if he let the girl slip away, Snoke would clean up his mess in a more brutal fashion.

The girl wasn’t in the lobby. He hurried out the doors into the street, looking left, then right. She had a sprained ankle and bruised ribs. She couldn’t possibly get far. Unless – he whirled around, towards the parking garage, a modern, concrete monstrosity next door to the historic hospital.

The garage was abuzz – it was shift change. Ben yanked his keys out of his pocket, scanning the people getting into cars. A flash of yellow caught his eye – the taxi station at the front of the garage. And a girl, slight, limping, getting into one. “Fuck.”

Ben sprinted towards his car, getting in it and slamming the door. He knew the ferocity of his own temper – as did his co-workers and anyone who worked under him – and he could feel his anger boiling just under the skin. “You are really starting to piss me off, kid.” He growled to no one in particular, accelerating to pull up right behind the cab as it hesitated at the entrance of the parking structure.

***

His black Lexus was sporty and flashy – on purpose – but he couldn’t tell if she knew she was being trailed. Surprisingly, rather than cut back through the city to the highway, her cab made a right and turned south, towards the Mississippi. He kept about a block behind her as they cruised down Tchoupitoulas towards the port. 

The cab driver let her out at the gates to the port. Ben yanked his steering wheel, parallel parking with a practiced efficiency. Hopping out of his car, he jogged towards the port entrance. His curiousity was piqued, but it was mixed with annoyance. She’d clearly lied to him – there was no good reason for her to come to the port if she weren’t meeting someone.

She was moving slowly, under the orange streetlamps. Her trajectory was towards the water, past the stacks of storage crates and shipping containers. She moved against the flow of traffic – workers, and people in port for the evening, were streaming towards the gates. They chattered in a variety of languages, and more than a few of them glanced backwards at the girl making her way to the nearest pier.

“Hey, kid!” He shouted, when she toed the edge of the dock. She turned, and he could see her face for the first time, in the dim lighting. They were away from the bright lights suspended by cranes and cords, right on the edge of the mighty river now. Her face was tear stained.

Something softened in him. “You going to jump or something?” He sidled closer, and she flinched.

“No. Leave me alone.”

“You’re going to jump.” He said, decidedly. “Not going anywhere.” In the back of his mind, he knew he was being irrational – so what if she did jump? His job would be over. And it certainly didn’t seem as if she had a lot to live for, judging by her injuries and air of utter isolation.

“I am not going to jump.” She said, sharply.

Ben crossed his arms. “So why’d you ask the cab driver to bring you out here?”

She crossed her arms, mirroring him, and opened her mouth as if to argue, and then snapped it closed again. She looked down at her feet, turning away from him. The bad foot protruded over the ledge, and she could see inky, muddy waters lapping at the concrete, about twelve feet below her.

Ben shoved his hands in his pockets, watching her she turned her back to him, cutting a melancholy figure against the moonlit river. Stepping closer, he studied the protruding vertebrae on the back of her neck. She didn’t move, even though he knew she could sense that he was standing right behind her.

“Let me help you.” He made his voice as cajoling as possible. At this point, his desire to get this unpleasant task over with was overwhelmed with a desire to stop this fragile, self-destructive child from doing anything stupid.

She didn’t react. He eyed her, then made a split second decision. He grabbed her arms and yanked, backwards, away from the edge. It took hardly any effort at all, at first – she was light in his arms, and limp. Unresisting.

That didn’t last long. Suddenly, she was squirming and clawing at his hands around her stomach. “Let me go!” She managed to twist and drag her fingernail across his face. He cursed at her, tightening his grip and dragging her backwards, away from the water.

“Stop – being such a little – idiot!” He ground out. “I’m helping you!”

“Don’t touch me!” She screeched, flailing against him uselessly.

“Don’t _scream_.” He tried to push her away with one arm while holding onto her with the other. “Jesus, kid, do you want to get me arrested?”

“Let me go.” She obeyed his request to not scream, but she said it through clenched teeth. “And don’t call me that.”

He finally had good purchase on her, his much larger arms, pinning hers by her sides, holding her up off the ground. “You didn’t give me a name.”

“I told you,” She wriggled her arms, straining. “I don’t know my name.”

“Well, okay, then, kid.” He couldn’t help but find her ferocious – but pathetic – efforts to escape him a little bit adorable. She didn’t seem to have any concept of the fact that she was about half his size and injured. “That’s what I’m going to call you.”

She groaned, going lax into him for a moment. He relaxed his grip. “If I set you down will you stay away from the damn water?”

“Yes.” She mumbled. He set her gentle back down on her feet, smoothing his left hand down her bicep, but keeping his right hand gripped like an iron vice onto her arm. “You re-opened your stitches.” He reached for her face with his free hand, cupping her cheek and touching her lip, where blood was pooling and streaming down her chin.

And then she _bit_ him. Hard, on the thumb. Cursing, he let her go, and she made an ill-advised break for it, back towards the gate of the port. It took him about three steps up catch up to her, but she must have heard his footsteps, because she turned around and kneed him in the groin, hard enough to make him gasp, head suddenly spinning. He sunk to his knees with a grunt, and she spun away, doing some sort of running limp across the port that would have made him laugh if she hadn’t just caused him a great deal of pain and inconvenience.

He lugged himself to his feet after about a minute, wincing, and took off after her, briefly reaching down and cupping himself with a scowl. “Son of a bitch.”

Her bad ankle and bruised ribs had prevented her from making too much headway. He reached the street outside the port in time to see her standing in the street, pressing her hand to her side, bent over. Her face was screwed up in pain.

He shouted to get her attention, from the sidewalk. “Knock it off. You haven’t had any pain meds, you can’t run forever.”

She drew herself up to her full height as if embarrassed he’d seen her moment of weakness, and emboldened by the fact that they were now in the middle of a busy street, buzzing with sailors in town just for the evening. There were too many witnesses now for him to abduct her, and it made her brave enough to taunt him.

“I-” The words died on her lips.

A taxi roared to life behind her – she’d been distracted. The driver was distracted too. Without looking behind him, he backed out of the spot he’d been occupying while waiting for passengers. She saw him, but she couldn’t move out of the way fast enough, her injuries betraying her. The bumper of his car hit the backs of her legs.

“Fuck!” Ben waved his arms at the driver, signaling him to stop before he crushed her, and sprinted forward. The girl’s face had gone white, and she sank to her knees. He got to her in time to catch her before she hit her head again. “Hey. You okay?”

The taxi driver’s wheels squealed, and he pulled away. Ben ignored him. “Kid. Say something so I know you’re alive. I don’t even care if you keep being a bitch.”

He wasn’t sure, but a smile might have ghosted over her lips a little. “Fuck off.” She murmured. She felt sleepy, all of the sudden, shaking, but sleepy. Suddenly, even the agonizing pain she’d felt before getting hit by a taxi was numbing. Her eyes flickered closed for a second and it felt so good. She felt her herself being hoisted up, but not even that alarmed her.

“Judging from the fact that you aren’t trying to kill me,” His voice was in her ear. “You’re in shock.”

“Okay.” She sounded fuzzy to her own ears. “Okay. That’s okay.”

He laughed a little bit, and she felt it through his chest into hers. “Let me take you somewhere safe.”

“Are you… asking permission?”

“No I’m not asking permission.” She felt him moving, but she felt like she was floating. “I’m taking you somewhere safe.”

 


	3. Chapter 3

A bloodcurdling, piercing scream rung out. The shock of it was enough to wake Ben, and he bolted upright. That was a miscalculation – his couch was already far too small for a man his size, and the sudden movement sent him tumbling to the group, smacking his head on the coffee table.

“Son of a bitch.” At least the screaming had stopped. He laid there for a second, rubbing his cheek and reflecting on the spectacularly poor life choices he’d made in the last twenty-four hours. He heard scuffling around from the across the room. Climbing to his feet, he stomped across the poured concrete floor towards the south end of his loft.

It was not a space designed for privacy, but, then again, very seldom did anyone spend any time here but himself. He’d arranged a bookshelf between his bed and his couch and television, stacking it full of books and curio to form a rudimentary wall. As he rounded that bookshelves corner, he stopped in his tracks.

His bed was empty. He glanced around, a little amused. “I didn’t imagine that scream.”

“Go away.” The voice was muffled. He followed it, around the edge of his bed. The girl was sitting against the side of the bed, the comforter wrapped around her like a cocoon, knees drawn up to her body. Only her eyes peered out.

“This is my house.” He informed her, matter-of-factly, squatting in front her. “How are you feeling?”

She eyed him, peevishly. “Like hell.”

“Want some more hydrocodone?” Ben asked, innocently. Her tongue darted out, and she licked her lips.

“Yes. And water.” She croaked.

Smugly, Ben lacked back on his heels. “Then tell me something about yourself.”

The blanked was suddenly pulled back from her face to reveal her fury. “You are not with-holding medicine from me until I talk.”

“Oh, of course not. I just can’t write a prescription until I have name.”

“Go to hell.”

“As you like it.” Ben stood up, leisurely, and stretched. “I’m starving. I don’t suppose you want some breakfast?”

“Going to dangle that in front of me too?” She growled. Ben crossed his arms, looking down at her.

“I’m not a monster,” He told her, primly, feeling slightly offended by her assessment. “I saved your life-”

“What a hero.” She mumbled. He ignored her.

“- I brought you here, slept on my incredibly uncomfortable couch and-”

“How noble.”

“Could you stop sassing me for a moment, please? You’re probably starving. I’ll make you an omlet. Take a shower, if you want, but take your ankle wrap off first.”

He turned on his heel and left without further ado, deciding that engaging in further argument with this girl was completely futile, and, considering he did not consider himself a morning person, bad for his mental health. As he cracked eggs into the pan, methodically, one after another, he heard the shower turn on. For some reason, he felt invaded by her presence here – in his bed, his shower. It wasn’t a totally unpleasant invasion. It just was that he was distinctly aware of her presence in the loft – just the sound of someone else moving, breathing, taking up space. It made his chest feel tight and suffocated.

He set her omelet down on the granite island with unnecessary force, two pain pills on the side of her plate, and grabbed his own plate, leaning against the counter and shoveling it into his mouth. He had no real desire to sit down and share breakfast with this girl, as if she’d spent the night in his apartment for some _recreational_ reason.

“That smells good.” The girl sounded surprisingly contrite. He turned around, glancing at her, mouth full, and then swallowed _hard_. She was wrapped in a towel, dwarfed by it, really. Her hair was dripping wet – forming a circle of water droplets on the floor around her feet – and now he could see it was shoulder length, curling stubbornly even despite the weight of the water. He could almost imagine that she’d spent the night with him, and he was making her breakfast. It had been a long time since he’d found himself in that situation, and it felt bizarre to imagine it now, with her.

“You don’t need to ogle me.” She sniped, making him jump a little.

“I’m not ogling.” He sounded defensive, even to his own ears. “The bruised and battered underage call girl look isn’t really a turn on for me.”

Her face went bright red under the bruises, and before he could apologize – he wasn’t sure why he had the instinct to apologize to this woman who’d been unapologetically rude to him – she whirled around and back into the bathroom, the door slamming behind her.

He grabbed her plate and went to the door. “Hey, I’m sorry, kid. I didn’t mean to say that.”

“Yes, you did.” She didn’t open the door, but spoke through it.

“Okay, I didn’t mean to upset you.” He ground out. “Just open the door and take your breakfast. You must be hungry.”

There was a long pause, and then she cracked the door. Her eyes – brown and luminous with tears, met his through the crack. “Why are you being so nice?”

Ben laughed despite himself. “Nice? I thought you were mad because just called you an underage call girl.”

“No, I mean,” She opened the door a little bit further. “Why are you being so nice to me?”

Baffled, Ben didn’t respond. “What?”

“Do you,” she hesitated. “Do you want to fuck me? Is that it?”

“No!” Ben practically jumped back from the door. “Jesus. No! I mean, not that you’re not – I just – no. Fuck. Is that what you think this is?”

“I don’t know what you want from me, why wouldn’t I think it’s that?” She shot back, crossing her arms and assuming that defiant stance that belied her small stature.

“Why _would_ you?” Ben ran his free hand through his hair. “What did I do to make you think that was what I wanted?”

She opened her mouth, and then closed it abruptly. “It’s not you.” Her eyes flickered closed for a second. “It’s me.”

Taken aback, Ben swallowed hard, feeling a completely unwelcome, and uncomfortable, twinge in his lower belly. “You want to-”

“No!” She practically snarled, her face tinged pink again. He wasn’t sure if it was anger or embarrassment. Her voice had risen an octave in anger and frustration, but now it sounded pinched and thin. “I mean – that’s all _anyone_ ever wants from me.”

A long, awkward silence stretched between them. She wouldn’t look at him, and suddenly Ben felt a need to get away from the situation. He stuck his hand out brandishing the plate with the now-cold omelet. “Would you just – here.”

Flustered, he turned around and walked away, wishing his loft had more rooms, somewhere he could escape for a second. Exhaling sharply through his nose, he flung himself down on the couch, tilting his head back and closing his eyes.

This situation was quickly getting out of hand, Ben decided, trying to think through this conundrum logically. He failed, horribly. He was having trouble keeping his temper – and his mild sensation of panic- under control. His attempts to interrogate the girl – or at least make her comfortable enough to confide in him – were rapidly unraveling into a mess of annoyance, and sympathy. He winced. He’d known, subconsciously, when Snoke had asked for her silence, and when he’d read her medical chart, what this girl was. What he hadn’t expected was to feel sympathy for her.

Academic sympathy – detached, impersonal – that was fine, he decided. Her lot in life was unfortunate, but it wasn’t his problem. In any case, in a major city, girls like her were a fact of life.

But personal sympathy – that was a whole other problem. His image of a prostitute – that word made it easier to feel impersonal – was a hardened, painted woman who’d made bad choices and frankly, made her bed. That word, and the image it conjured, didn’t make sense for this _little girl_. This girl was putting on a brave face, but something frightened her terribly. With good reason, he knew, if Snoke took some interest in her.

He heard her move out of the bathroom and opened his eyes, jumping a little. “Would you put some clothes on?”

“All I have is the old stuff the hospital gave me.” She wrapped the towel around her tighter. “Do you have anything?”

“I don’t think it’ll fit you, kid." He managed to deadpan. She smiled a little, but there was something very sad about it, like all of her smiles. “I’ll pick you up something.” He pushed himself off the couch. “Just… I don’t know, put on something.” He couldn’t focus on her, in a towel, but he also couldn’t keep his eyes away too much. They darted around the room.

“So I have to stay here.” Her face crumpled. “I feel….” She trailed off, and moved to the window, pressing her finger to the glass panel. He watched her, trying to take in the view from her eyes. He’d bought this loft for the view – it was a re-furbished factory along the river. He watched a barge lazily drift down the river in front of her gaze, and saw her hand half-clench, involuntarily, against the glass.

“Trapped?” He supplied.

She looked over her shoulder. “How did you know that?”

“You’re looking out that window like it’s all going to disappear if you don’t get out there.”

“I never…” Her voice trailed off, and she looked back out the window. After a few moments she picked back up again. “I’m remembering things. Little bits. I remember this river.” She was so close to the glass that he could see her breath fogging it. “Only it looks different, in the light.”

“What else do you remember?”

She moved away from the window, looking defeated. “Nothing. I thought if I went back there, last night – if I went to the river, I’d remember something else.”

“What do you remember about the river?” He realized they were standing close now. She seemed lost in thought, forgetting that she was speaking to him. Her brow as furrowed as if she was focusing very hard.

“A boat.” She said, finally. “An ocean. Maybe I dreamed of an ocean. I don’t know.”

Ben’s phone _dinged_ and he cursed in his head. She quickly snapped out of her reflective state, and he knew she was done talking. Whatever had transpired to make her describe her memories to him, it was broken by that ring He stalked over to the counter and picked it up.

_I trust it’s taken care of by now. And that you’ll be at our regular appointment._

Ben glanced down at his watch. “Look – I need to run an errand. Will you stay here?”

“No.” She sounded almost like she was teasing him. “Oh, come on. I don’t have any clothes.”

He was very aware of that, thank you. He was also aware that if he left her here, there was no telling if she’d be back when he returned.

A traitorous thought crossed his mind, and he shook it off. “You can just borrow some of my clothes until I come back. The painkillers will make you sleepy.” He paused. “And I will be back.”

***

Ben spent his entire drive to Snoke’s home reciting his story in his head. The girl hadn’t remembered anything. She’d told him that, and he’d believed her. She’d check out of the hospital. He’d trailed her, and she’d disappeared. His mouth was dry as he was ushered in by the maid and passed a seated, lumbering security guard. A second guard stood and followed him up the stairs to the grand old bedroom.

Before he could open his mouth, Snoke cut him off. “The girl?”

“Gone.” Ben didn’t elaborate, letting Snoke interpret that ambiguous statement how he would.

“Well, I know you’re too spineless to kill her youself,” Snoke sounded like he was enjoying a good joke. “So what do you mean by that?”

“She checked out of the hospital. After I had the chance to talk to her. She had a serious head trauma, she couldn’t remember anything.”

Snoke leaned his chin on his hands. “Interesting.”

“I didn’t find it very.” Ben said, flatly. “She was concussed.”

“Oh, I didn’t mean that it was interesting that she would tell you she didn’t remember anything. I expected that.” Snoke laughed, as short, raspy laugh. “I mean it is _interesting_ that you would lie to me to protect her.”

“I’m not lying.” Ben sounded petulant even to his own ears.

“The girl is at your apartment.” There was no humor in Snoke’s voice now. “Think carefully before you lie to me again.”

Ben’s stomach dropped, and he shifted his weight, suddenly feeling very exposed. “All right.”

“Surely you knew I kept you under some surveillance.” Snoke sounded almost disappointed. “Why do you have her there?”

“I…” Ben stopped. “I’m not sure.”

“Do you want to fuck her?” Snoke used the same words the girl had used that morning, and it made Ben flinch, feeling dirty. “That’s what she’s for, you know.”

“You mean she’s a prostitute.” Ben’s voice was very low in his effort to keep it calm. “I knew that.”

“She told you that?”

“I read her medical records.” Ben hesitated. “It seemed… logical.”

“So, answer my question.” Snoke’s voice was like the purr of a big cat toying with its prey. “Do you want to fuck her?”

“No.”

“Then please dispose of her. Or fuck her first, and then dispose of her. I don’t really care.”

“She really doesn’t remember anything.” Ben tried, valiantly.

“I’m sure she told you that.” Snoke turned away from him. “Drop off my prescriptions and go.”

Feeling his face flush, Ben dropped the paper bag and turned to go.

“Oh, and Ben.” He stopped in the doorframe. “I know she won’t say anything.”

“What?” Ben snapped, turning.

“I saw it on the news today.” Snoke was looking out the gap in the curtains, a small smile curving the edge of his lip. It was cut through by an ugly scar. “My employee’s corpse was found in New Orleans East two hours ago. Two days old. And so I doubt, you see, that our mutual friend is eager to talk to the police.”

 

 


	4. Chapter 4

Ben walked slowly down the stairs of the old house, pausing momentarily one each step. He found himself hoping, against reason, that the girl had run away in his absence. She wouldn’t make it very far, he knew, instinctively. But she wouldn’t be his problem.

“Solo.” He turned on the second to last step.

“Hux.” He shoved his hands into his pockets and scowling. He was never in the mood to deal with Hux, but this was a uniquely bad time for Snoke’s internal operations man to catch him. “Can I help you?”

The red-haired man took crisp, short steps down the stairs, extending a long, pale arm. He was holding a manila folder. “Some bedtime reading.”

“Excuse me?”

“Compliments of Mr. Snoke.”

Ben took the folder. Its tab was marked _R.E.Y._ He flicked it open, and immediately recoiled. “What the fuck is this, Hux?”

Hux gave him a signature sardonic smile. “Sweet dreams, Dr. Solo.”

***

Ben didn’t look back in the envelope as he drove. His hands shook on the wheel, and he earned a few dirty looks and horns when he drifted lanes.

He had no reason to doubt Snoke. He hadn’t turned on the news in his loft – last night, he’d preoccupied with re-stitching up the girl’s lip, wrapping up her ankle, and securing her in bed before collapsing into sleep on the couch. This morning, he’d been preoccupied by, well, _her_.

He’d stupidly been feeling sympathy for her – some inane desire to protect her – when she was a criminal, no better than Snoke himself. Or me, the thought appeared, unbidden. He squared it away. He was not a criminal. He did what was necessary – and what was necessary, now, was to get rid of this girl.

***

The manila folder felt heavy in his hand when he unlocked the door to his loft. He registered, dully, that the door was, indeed, locked – she must still be inside.

The late afternoon sunlight bathed the loft. It was utterly silent. The slap of the manila folder down onto the counter broke the silence. Still, no response.

Frowning, Ben dropped his shopping bag on the couch and walked towards his bed. She was asleep, curled in a nest of blankets and sheets. He studied her, unthreatening in her sleep.

Her bruises were fading, he noted with satisfaction. She frowned in her sleep, brows knit over her forehead, jaw clenched. Her knees were drawn up to her chest, in a fetal position. Her hair was an unruly halo around her head, and he felt a sudden urge to smooth it down.

Despite himself, he reached forward. He hesitated, first, out of trepidation at the idea of touching her, and then, because his eye caught something.

Something was glinting, peeking out from the edge of his pillow. It was chrome. Swiftly, he reached down, grasped it, and yanked, unceremoniously knocking her head off the pillow.

She made a muffled noise, sitting up and fumbling around her, frantically.

“Looking for this?” Ben knew his voice was shaking with anger. He held up the pistol. “ _My_ gun?”

Her lower lip trembled, but it didn’t garner any sympathy in him, this time. “I needed it.”

“Who the fuck gave you permission to look through my things?” He shook the pistol, unconsciously, and she flinched. In his anger, he realized he didn’t mind that. Reaching down, her grabbed her shoulder with his free hand, forcing her to look up, at him, and at the muzzle of the gun. “Huh?”

She flushed. “You aren’t going to shoot me.”

“Aren’t I?” He was tempted to take the safety off of the pistol, but he was too afraid of his own temper – he knew it too well.

She was trapped, and she knew it. Fighting or being belligerent with him was not going to help. “I didn’t see anything else. I just - found it.”

“This was in a _locked box_ in my _closet_ with my fucking social security card.” It wasn’t actually his social security card that he was worried about her seeing, of course, but he couldn’t resist the sarcastic jab.

“I needed it.” She repeated, sounding a little obstinate. She paused, then her voice broke. “I didn’t feel safe.”

Ben’s grip on the pistol wavered a little, and the muzzle wobbled in front of her face. He fought back a twinge of sympathy that he didn’t _want_ to feel. “What a coincidence.”

A flash of confusion crossed her face. “What do you mean?”

“Oh, come on.” Ben unloaded the clip, weighing the ammunition in his hands. Two bullets fell, hitting the floor with sharp pings. She flinched. “ _You_ feel unsafe?”

“Yes.” She whispered. “I don’t know if I can trust you.”

Ben fought back near-hysterical laughter, bubbling to his lips. His words came out slightly strangled, as a result, rising in pitch and volume as he ranted on. “Here’s the deal, kid. You shouldn’t trust me. I brought you here because I thought you were some sort of _victim_.” The word was punctuated like a shout, and he threw the remaining bullets in his hand against the brick wall behind her. “But you aren’t. I risked my _job_ , I lied to my fucking-” He broke off, breathing hard.

The girl was clutching the blankets around her, shoulders rising and falling quickly. She seemed unable to look away from him.

Ben’s hand rose to his mouth almost involuntarily. “Get out.” It was muffled.

“What?” She squeaked.

“I said get out. There’s clothes for you in a bag on the couch.” He threw the gun into the corner for good measure, breathing out through his nose, and pulled out his wallet. “Here’s a hundred bucks. Get a taxi and get out of here.”

“Where am I supposed to go?” Her nostrils flared.

“I don’t fucking care.” He spat. He knew, of course. She’d go right into the clutches of Hux, or one of Snoke’s other lackeys, or to the police, where she’d be summarily arrested. “Just go.”

He stood still, in that same spot, for a long time after she left.

It frightened him, how quickly he’d flown into a rage because of her. He’d thought that he had gotten that part of himself under control with age. His impulse control, his anger. It was one of the things that had gotten him in this situation in the first place – he’d been an impulsive medical student, making stupid decisions, when Snoke had found him. And if he didn’t want to be _found out_ , Snoke had explained, drily, he would owe Snoke some favors. 

The thought of Snoke made his lips twist briefly. It was not in his nature to be submissive to anyone. It was even less pleasant to be manipulated. But that was exactly what he felt – he wasn’t entirely clear if it was Snoke’s doing, or the girl’s.

That made him think of the folder, and he went back into the kitchen, staring at it.

He fixed himself a stiff drink, and sat across from it.

Even with her gone – and her absence was acute, somehow – he didn’t want to open it again. This girl had been occupying his mind, all of his anxieties, for nearly seventy-two hours. And the picture he’d seen when he’d opened the manila file had brutally snapped him out of that.

Without standing, he stretched a long hand out and snagged the folder, pulling it over to him.  _R.E.Y._

Initials, he thought, running his finger over the marked tab, flicking it. Her initials. He opened the folder again, steeled this time, and studied the picture of the bloodied corpse. It was swollen and puffy – decomposing, face down, in a squalid room. The man had been overweight and wrinkled. He’d turned gray in death, like a massive, rotting elephant corpse. There was brownish blood stain spread out around him like an abstract painting. It was mixed with urine and feces on the pock-marked floor. It was dated – two days ago.

If this was Snoke’s dossier on the girl, then this was an auspicious recent edition, he thought, humorlessly.

He prepared himself for something worse, somehow, and flicked through short stack of papers, to the first document.  

It was a picture of the girl, he knew, instantly. But it was a picture of a truly _little girl_. A child. The eyes were the same – brown, slightly almond shaped. Sad. The stubborn chin was the same. The brown hair.

But she could not have been more than eight or ten in the photograph. And there was something distinctly _not_ childlike about what she was wearing. It took him a moment to realize the photographer had sexualized this picture, somehow, in what she was wearing, how she was posed. Bile rose in his throat.

It took all he had not to throw the file across the room. He grabbed the drink, downing it in a single go, and then poured more.

The photograph was dated.

_R.E.Y., 1/14/2006._

He couldn’t flip to the next document fast enough.

It was a piece of filmy paper, with blanks filled in in crude pencil. The blank on the top left – _1/11/2006_. Beneath it – name – _R.E.Y_. Description – _white, female, 10/yr_. His mouth went dry as it skimmed further down the page, looking for something and hoping, _hoping_ he would not find it.

$ _22,000., P.O.D._

_Rec'd, U.P._

This was a receipt.

_***_

The girl hadn't made it far. When Ben left his apartment, four drinks later, to get some fresh air, clear his head – maybe to vomit – he nearly tripped over her.

She was sitting on the hallway floor, a few feet from his door.

He stared at her, and she stared back, unapologetically. Ben knew she was expecting a fight, but he couldn’t bring himself to say anything for a long time.

Finally, he managed, “Hey, kid.”

“Hey.” She broke his gaze, looking down at the floor. “I didn’t know where to go.”

Ben felt a sick twist in his stomach, both from his new understanding of her, and the liquor. Whether she truly didn’t know – didn’t know what she was or where she had come from – or was just afraid to go back, he couldn’t fault her. Not now. Not after reading her file.

“Why don’t you…” He shuffled his feet, looking at them. “Why don’t you come on back in?”

She eyed him, suddenly on very much on guard. “You’re drunk, aren’t you?”

Ben groaned. He knew he smelled like whisky, and that invitation had come out a little slurred. “A little.”

She swallowed hard. “I’ll stay out here then.”

“Come on, kid. I’m not that drunk.” He tried his best to give her a charming smile. It backfired.

“No.” She scuttled further down the hallway on her bottom, her movements jerky and panicky. “I’m not coming in there while you’re drunk.”

Ben’s exasperation melted away, instantly, when he realized the catch in her voice was not obstinacy, but fear. She was afraid to go into the loft with a drunk, strange man. Afraid that he would _attack_ her.

“I won’t hurt you.” He did his best to keep his voice steady.

“I told you I don’t trust you.”

“I won’t.”

“You _told_ me I shouldn’t trust you. You shook a gun in my face.” A hand flashed up to her face, so quickly he barely saw it, to wipe away some traitor tears she clearly didn’t want him to see.

“I was just angry. I promise, I won’t hurt you.”

She shook her head. “No. I – I won’t.”

Ben ran a hand over his hair, slowly. The world was spinning a little. Persuading her was out of the question – he’d known that much about her the moment he’d met her – and he’d be damned if he forced her into the loft, living up to her every expectation about what a monster he was.

Leaving her out in the hallway to be reported to building security, and possibly the police, was a non-starter.

It was getting harder and harder to stand still while the hallway wobbled, so Ben made a quick decision. He turned and slid down the wall, until he landed ungracefully on the ground. His long legs stretched out, blocking the entire hallway, a stark contrast to her curled up, self-protective posture.

“What are you doing?”

Ben closed his eyes, leading back against the wall. “Well, you wouldn’t come in.”

A beat, and then, “You’re ridiculous.”

Ben couldn’t help but smile a little. “When I’m drunk, maybe. I’m going to go to sleep.”

“Ben.” His eyes opened of their own accord, and suddenly he wasn’t sleepy.

“You never… said my name before.” He sounded surprised. Still drunk. 

She looked away for a second. “Well.” She was making a visible effort to be stoic. “It’s… nice of you. To stay.”

Ben leaned back against the wall and didn’t say anything. He could hear her breathing, slowing and becoming deep and steady, and the buzzing fluorescent lights. She might have fallen asleep, but he didn’t dare to look. His words from that afternoon kept niggling at his consciousness, destroying any relaxing effect the alcohol and her slow, steady breathing might have had on him.

_You shouldn’t trust me._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Human trafficking and child sex crimes are an issue I'm hugely passionate about, so it seemed natural to me that in the modern world, someone like Rey would have ended up a victim of trafficking. For those of you who (very naturally) feel put-off by this topic - I am too. Hopefully, my coverage of the topic will be sensitive.


	5. Chapter 5

Ben's steps were slow and heavy into his loft. It was 4:15 A.M., and he, regrettably, had a shift starting in forty-five minutes. He’d woken up at about 2:30 A.M. to find her head in his lap, her shoulders rising and falling slowly. His hand was big enough to cover the entire crown of her head when he rested it tentatively there.

Somehow, she’d managed to sleep through him picking her up, ungracefully, and fumbling with his keys. He’d narrowly missed smacking her head against the doorframe, and still, she slept.

He laid her down on the bed carefully, arranging her limbs and then pulling the comforter over her. It was dim in the room, the light from his kitchen barely illuminating the planes of her face.

_R.E.Y._

Rachel. Rosemary. Renee. Rose. Ruby. Rowan. Rhee. 

None of those really fit her, he decided. She didn’t have a trendy name. She didn’t have a Victorian, flowery name either. And it certainly wasn’t ordinary. Her name had to be something simple, short, poignant - unexpected. That was the only way it could suit her. 

She stirred in her sleep, eyelashes fluttering, and Ben sat lightly on the edge of the bed. “I’m going to the hospital. Not sure if you’re awake, but…” He smoothed a piece of hair out of her face, his fingers trembling slightly at the contact. “See you soon, kid.”

***

It was about two hours into Ben’s shift before he slid into his familiar, comforting routine, assisting on a heart bypass. He felt most comfortable, here, busy, with people scurrying to obey his orders while he focused on the precise, dangerous task before him.

It was enough to forget about the girl, and remember who he was. He was a creature of solitude and intense focus because it suited him – made him a better surgeon, made his hands dexterous, his head clear. There were no overwhelming swells of emotion, no tugs in his consciousness towards his liquor cabinet, no headaches.

He had always been a brilliant doctor, and a brilliant student before that. He’d been talented. That label really had affixed long before medical school. In grade school, he’d been unruly, a troublemaker, because everything was so easy for him. As a teenager, he was unsuccessful with girls, labeled a geek, and gawky-looking to beat. He'd been all ears and limbs and crooked teeth. That had added to his behavior issues, probably, being so unpopular. 

His parents had always made their expectations clear – a doctor or a lawyer, they’d always say - and while at first he’d fought them, his ego had taken over. He’d always known he was intelligent and talented enough to excel, and it almost felt like a slap in their faces to be successful and at the same time play with fire, risking it all. He’d graduated from high school at fifteen, and gone to college at sixteen. Duke, and then Johns Hopkins for medical school, then residency. All the while, drinking heavily, and experimenting with prescription medications. There’d been two totaled cars, countless bar fights, and only two girlfriends. Both had left, shouting about how he had _problems_ and _needed therapy,_ the first after he flatly told her she would never meet his parents, _ever_ , and one after he went on call after too many drinks. 

There’d been a few other women, but none that he’d let spend the night or kissed on the mouth after he was done having sex with them. They were recreational, like alcohol or oxycodone, only used much less frequently.

When he was a resident, at Oshner, in New Orleans, he’d been caught filling his own prescriptions for oxycodone, by a pharmacist. He thought his professional career was over, but all that had happened was a phone call from a blocked number. That was how he’d met Snoke. Then, anyone in his life had fallen away. There wasn’t time for girls, there wasn’t time for drugs. He made time to drink, in the wee hours. Most of the time, if he wasn’t on shift, he was at Snoke’s venerable old house a few blocks away from Touro, monitering his fragile health and catering to his morphine addiction. And occasionally, he ran Snoke’s errands at Touro. They’d started off relatively easy – nothing that would risk his job or his license – but even when they weren’t so easy, he couldn’t say no. 

“Doctor.” The greeting pulled him out of his meditative state. Ben glanced over his shoulder, pulling off his gloves, hearing that satisfying snap.

“Yes?”

“Room 280 paged when you’re done scrubbing out.

“Yep.” He threw the gloves in the trash, pulling the strings of the mask around his ears. Three hours had passed, without him even realizing it. He slapped his wristwatch back on, checking the time. Only five more hours until his shift was over and he could back to his loft.

It had been a long time since he’d looked forward to the end of shift. He looked forward the occasional alcohol binge, or to sleep, after ten hours on his feet in surgery. And he did appreciate the quiet, the solitude. But right now, he felt a distinct _excitement_ to go home, to ensure that his charge was resting peacefully, healing, safe. It reminded him of when he'd had his first patient, practically rushing to their room every ten minutes, to make sure everything was going perfectly, like an anxious mother duck. 

Ben grabbed the chart and clipboard out of the clear, plastic sheath by the door. This patient would be one of hundreds, now. Unmemorable, to say the least. "Okay, Miss Jones?”

“Miss Jones is asleep.” A woman’s low voice came from the back of the room. Ben turned. An unfamiliar woman stood up, her long limbs untangling. When she stood, she was nearly his height, and impeccably dressed. Her hair was platinum and cropped, and that, combined her her white dress and silver heels, made her look like some sort of futuristic Amazon. 

“I’m Doctor Solo.” Ben the chart awkwardly under one arm, reaching out to shake her hand. She didn’t reciprocate the gesture. “You are… sister? Partner?”

“I’m her keeper.” Phasma smiled serenely. Ben laughed.

“Excuse me?”

“I’m a madam.” She clarified, unabashedly, moving elegantly across the room, to the bed where the young woman was lying prone, asleep. “I’m here to collect her.”

Ben shifted on his feet, suddenly very uncomfortable, nerves prickling a warning. “You work for Snoke.”

“As do you.”

“More of an independent contractor, actually.” Ben’s attempt at humor, to diffuse the situation, didn’t have much of an effect on her. “You can’t collect her. She was admitted for an overdose.” He glanced at the chart, thinking with a sick sense of dread, of _his_ girl's medical chart, and then said, letting the threat impart with his words, “And I’m going to order a rape kit, actually.”

The woman laughed softly. She trailed her fingers, almost tenderly, over the sleeping girl’s cheek. “How many girls of Snoke’s, Doctor, do you think have passed through this hospital? How many have been your patients?”

“I don’t know.”

“Hundreds.” Her gaze held his, magnetically. “And you never batted an eye, never ordered a rape kit, never called the police. But one girl…” Her fingers tightened, suddenly, in the girls hair. “One girl catches your attention, and suddenly you have a conscience.”

Ben’s mouth was dry. “Is this one like…” _my girl_ , he’d been able to cut off those words, knowing they’d betray him. “Was she just a child?”

“Her?” The woman looked amused. “No. We acquired her as an adult. She came willingly. And she’ll come with me when she wakes up. She's an addict.”

“She didn’t come willingly.” Ben spat out. “I mean the girl – R.E.Y. What’s her name?”

“I never had a reason to know it.” The woman told him, so casually, and ruthlessly, that he saw red creep around the edges of his vision. “I only managed her in the last few years.”

Ben’s hands were shaking, straining on the clipboard. It was about to snap in half, splintering. “You will not collect her. R.E.Y. Snoke gave her to me to handle.”

“Snoke gave you a job to do, which you totally botched.” The woman still was not displaying any emotion. It drove Ben’s emotions to a new plateau, somehow, her complete lack of reaction. “And now I have a job.”

“What, to threaten me?” She wasn’t a small woman, but Ben could still make himself threatening, entering her personal space and leaning into her face, voice low, all gravel and acid. His fists were balled, the veins in his arms and forehead popping. 

“I don’t need to threaten you. You will do as you’re told, or you will lose your medical license, and go to jail.” She brushed past him. “You’ve been so competent in the past, so Mr. Snoke is understandably… disappointed in you. But, you are a valuable asset. And so is she.”

Ben’s posture did not relax as he watched her settle into the armchair by the window, coat gathered on her lap, to wait, like a vulture.

“What with the unfortunate death of Mr. Plutt, the girl won’t dare go to the police. She’s not an exposure risk if she’s concerned about being arrested for murder.”

Ben flinched at the word, but stay silent.

“So it would be a waste of capital to let her leave our organization.” The woman examined her manicured fingers. “When we have already invested so much time in her.”

“Ten years.” Ben growled. “She was a little kid ten years ago. I – goddamnit, I did not sign up for this.”

“Oh, please.” She scoffed. “You signed up for everything. Don’t pretend to be noble. You always knew what was going on. You just didn’t want to see it. What difference does it make if it’s a pimp and whore out on Rampart, or a little kid? It doesn’t. They’re all skin, and skin sells. Have you had your fun?” 

Ben turned away from her, understanding her implication and feeling an urge to grab the nearest chair and throw it at her for implying that he was like them - the men who he knew, despite all his efforts to block out that knowledge, had bought time with the girl.  “Get out.”

“Too noble?" She tsked. "It might help with your anger issues." Her voice turned more serious. "But if you insist. Return the girl. Tonight. As soon as your shift ends.” She stood and stretched, her voice suddenly taking on a falsely cheery tone, completely different from the cold, consummate professionalism she'd maintained throughout their conversation.  “I’m certainly glad we had this talk. I’m going to go get some coffee.”

“Wait.” Ben closed his eyes, feeling her about to pass him where he leaned against the cinderblock wall with one arm. “Give me until tomorrow morning.”

“How sweet.” She droned. “But all right. I suppose I’m in the business of just one night. 8:00 A.M., Doctor. Hopefully you'll be less pissy afterwards. And then, maybe, Mr. Snoke will discuss how you can prove your loyalty.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> See, even Phasma thinks Ben needs to get laid! (But since I'm a coldhearted bitch, we obviously can't get there without a lot of tears, violence, and angst first.)


	6. Chapter 6

Ben must have burst through the door of the loft – he still felt near-combustible – because the girl didn’t have time to hide or even drop the manila folder when he crashed into the living room. She twisted on the couch, eyes meeting his, the size of saucers in her thin face.

“What-” They both spoke at the same time. Ben stopped, feeling as if he’d been caught, but she plunged forward, striving to maintain her anger despite the wobble in her voice and the moisture in her eyes.

“What is this?” She held up the folder. Ben swallowed hard.

“You weren’t supposed to find that.” He’d put it in his desk drawer before leaving for work.

“Is this _yours_?” She looked like a caged animal, eyes darting from him, to the door, and back again. “You have a – a _file_ on me?”

“No!”

“Were you stalking me? Did you plan this? And you some sort of – sicko? Or _serial killer_?”

“No!” Ben ran a hand over his face, his fingers muffling his words. “I was given it.” He opened his eyes and looked at her. She was breathing hard. The shirt he’d bought for her – he had no idea of what was in style, and this probably wasn’t, but it was practical – showed the top of her chest, under her collar bone. It was flushed red with anger, or adrenaline, and he found it strangely alluring.

“You need to explain to me right now what is going on.” She said it through gritted teeth.

Ben bit back a retort – thinking of all the things he wanted her to explain to him – and rested his hands on his hips. “What do you want to know?”

“Who gave you this folder.”

Ben hesitated. “Did you read it?”

She paused. Her eyes were glassy and golden in the late afternoon light. “No.” She fingered the edge of the folder. “I opened it. But I don’t want to read it.”

“You know what’s in there.” Ben suddenly realized. “You know what all those papers say.”

“I know.” She practically shouted it. Her voice softened, then. “I know what I am.” Her throat bobbed and her next words came out strangled. “And I need to know… I need to know how I got here. But I’m afraid it will be too terrible.”

“It is terrible.” The words were blunt but he was surprised at how tender they sounded. “Don’t read it.” He held out his hand, wanting to protect her from this, knowing it was as awful as she imagined it was. “Let me take it.”

She started to hand it to him, then jerked back. “Not until you tell me where you got it.”

Ben wet his lips. “You don’t want to know that either.”

“ _Ben_.” She pled. “Please. You can’t protect me from everything.”

The guilt hit him, then, when he realized that she trusted him. That she thought he would or could protect her, and that he knew he couldn’t. She must have seen it cross his face, because she suddenly looked very guarded.

“What?”

It all seemed completely impossible to explain, suddenly. “I work for… well, I owe favors to somebody. One of those favors was you.”

 “What?” She repeated, brow creasing.

“U.P.” He said, finally. “The dead man.”

“Unkar Plutt.” She said it like it burned her mouth.

“He was murdered.” Ben supplied. “You…” he trailed off, not sure if he should confront her about this. She lifted her chin, defiantly.

“Say it.” She goaded him. “Or do you not believe it?”

“I believe it.” Ben muttered. “I saw the picture of his corpse.”

“And?” She prodded, tears on her cheeks in earnest now. “What do you want me to say? That I killed him?”

“It doesn’t matter.” Ben said, numbly. “But Plutt worked for… a friend of mine.”

Her face flushed scarlet. “A friend of yours.” She said, scathingly. “Who?”

“Not a friend.” Ben backtracked, hastily. “I owe him a favor.”

“So I was the favor.” She sank down onto the couch, arms wrapping around her torso. It was silent for a long moment.

“You ended up in my hospital.” Ben whispered.

“Do you want to know how I ended up there?” Her voice sounded oddly detached and high-pitched.

“I already know, I’m your doctor.” Ben snapped. He didn’t want to hear the circumstances, and his quickness to respond betrayed that.

She told him, anyways, to punish him.

She’d been working. The client had given her a funny feeling, and she’d hesitated to get in his car. Unkar had slapped her across the face, splitting her lip, and told her to. She told the man she didn’t want to go into his hotel room, and that she could use her hand or her mouth there, in his car. He’d grabbed her hair and slammed her head against the dashboard, making her see stars, and then blackness. She’d come to, laying facedown on a hotel bed, blood and spit smeared on her face and the pillows. A gun had been nestled in the hair at the back of her neck as he fucked her ruthlessly from behind. Her ribs ached with every breath she tried to suck in. The pillows and the blood were smothering her and she couldn’t suck in enough air to breath.

But the man had fallen asleep, after, and she’d taken his gun.

She’d thought seriously about shooting him – and might have, if she’d thought of him as a rapist. But he wasn’t the one at fault for this.

Instead, she shot Unkar. She’d caught a taxi using cash from the man’s wallet. She’d gone back to Unkar’s apartment. The first hot had surprised him. The bullet had hit his massive stomach and he’d looked at her in shock, his meaty hands clutching the seeping bullet hole.

Two more shots, but he’d lunged at her, taking her down to the floor, and they’d struggled. When she’d tried to run he’d grabbed her ankle and twisted, and she’d shrieked. Her hands were slippery with blood, making it hard to get purchased and climb off the floor. Unkar wasn’t moving, and she’d half-fallen down the stairs, hearing screams from the other girls.

She’d kicked the gun down the gutter in the alleyway and turned towards the street before sinking to her knees, feeling vomit rise in her throat. She vomited all over the street, then laid her forehead down in the mess. Her head hurt, blackness creeping on the edges of her vision again.

She remembered hearing male voices and trying to crawl away. As it happened, they were drunk tourists, fraternity brothers who were up to no good, but harmless. They’d called an ambulance.

He hadn’t wanted to hear the story, but hearing it relieved him somehow. The ending was satisfying to him, in his heart of hearts. Unkar Plutt – he knew the name now, despised it – bleeding out on the grimy floor of an apartment in New Orleans East, shot when he’d least been expecting it and dying slowly.

“So what was the favor?” Her quiet question dragged him out of his private fantasy of murdering Unkar Plutt himself. Then, the client, for good measure.

“What?”

“The favor.” She looked defeated. “Were you supposed to kill me?”

“Maybe.” Ben sat down, heavily, next to her. “I don’t know. I was supposed to find out what you know. Is that all you remember?”

“What happened with the man in the hotel room.” She licked her lower lip, and his eyes fixated on the stitches. They were dissolving, her lip almost healed, but there would be a small scar there. “I remember that. For as long as I remember. Sometimes they were nice, and sometimes they weren’t. I don’t remember anything else.”

Knowing it was likely irrelevant, but unable to resist satisfying his personal curiosity, Ben asked, “What did they call you?”

Her lips twitched. “Girl.” She said it, scornfully.

“So you don’t know your name.”

“I don’t have a name.” She countered. “I’m nobody.”

“That’s not what Snoke seems to think.” The name slipped out before he could stop it.

“Who’s Snoke?”

“The one who sent me.”

It was awkwardly silent, then, for a long time. Ben’s hand twitched on the couch between their thighs, with the effort of not touching her. He couldn’t remember a time that he’d touched someone to comfort them. The last time anyone had wrapped him in their arms, it had been his mother, already much smaller than him, and he’d grumbled and twisted away.

He wanted to hold this girl, now.

“What are you going to do with me?” Her voice finally quivered.

_I want to take you away._

_I’m going to take you to him._

“I’ll figure something out by tomorrow.” He leaned back into the couch. “Can I take you somewhere, for tonight?”

“Where?” She looked completely mistrustful.

“You said all you ever remember was working for Plutt.” A tendril of hair had fallen out of her bun, gracing the bruise on her neck. He stared at it.

He wondered how many bruises there had been on her skin, before this particular array. He wondered if she’d ever seen the dark, damp beauty of the city at night, rather than the grimy street corners east of the Marigny, and the insides of dirty hotels. If night just meant pain and humiliation for her, instead of jazz and cocktails and wafting cigar smoke.

“Let me take you somewhere.”

Ben brought her to a jazz club on Frenchman Street, and she clung to his side, at first, almost afraid strangers would brush against her. He’d heard the band before. He liked them for their melancholy sound – not brash or brassy, but wailing, slow. Upbeat jazz was never interesting to him – it was the dissonant, minor key songs that he liked and puzzled over.

It was dim in the club, loud enough that he couldn’t hear her. The late autumn, hurricane season rain was beating a low rhythm on the roof. She sat in the corner of the room, self-contained, barely touching the gin and tonic he bought her, for almost an hour

After a second drink, though, she stood up and moved closer to him, posture loser. Her hair had fallen lose in earnest, now, and maybe it was the three drinks he’d had, but he reached over her shoulder and took out the hair tie. He rested his hand on her shoulder, the brown curls brushing her fingers.

The glimmer in her eyes could have been the lights, or tears, but she didn’t look away from his. She was swaying a little, her legs nearly between his knees where he sat, and he realized that she was trying to dance. It was like watching an alien who had heard of dancing, knew what it was in an academic sense, and wanted very much to try it, but didn’t know quite how, didn’t fit quite right in its skin.

“I don’t dance.” He heard himself say, standing and running his hand down her arm, to her hand, and catching it in his. She stepped closer, letting his other hand rest on her waist.

 “Well obviously no one ever asked me to _dance_.” The word was loaded, and he wasn’t sure if she was feeling sorry for herself or reveling in this new experience.

“You want to dance with me?” He sounded stupid, asking the question when they were already moving, and he was sure he looked it, swaying slightly in the corner of the dusky club.

“Yes.” Those were tears, he knew, now, looking at her face. But she was smiling, a rivulet from her eye spilling across her smile. “Whatever you have to do to me, tomorrow, I want to remember you like this.”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Readers, I am considering bumping up the rating - both for *fun* reasons and not so fun reasons. Thoughts?


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We now return to our regularly scheduled updates! Apologies for the delay.

It took Ben ten minutes to realize the girl had run away.

He’d had another two drinks, and they’d danced closer, but when he’d tangled a hand in her hair, she’d pulled away. He knew his eyes were dilated, and that he was flushed, but he didn’t care. He wasn’t in any shape to drive but he wanted to pull her by the hand into his car and take her home, or if he really _couldn’t_ drive, just pull her into his lap in the car.

How she’d gone from a scrap of a girl and a pain in his ass to _this,_ he didn’t know, but he’d grinned like a drunk fool when she’d excused herself to go to the bathroom. His smile had faded after about five minutes. After seven minutes he started pacing.

At ten minutes, he swore, and checked his pockets.

She’d had her arms wrapped around his waist while they danced, and he’d been so nervous, and then so lightheaded. But still _stupid._ She’d taken his keys, while he’d been acting like an anxious eighth-grader at a school dance.

He set down his half-finished drink and hurried to the door, shoving someone unceremoniously out of the way. On the street, he broke into a jog. It was drizzling, and dark, but under the streetlights, he could see from a block away that his car was gone.

“Fuck!” He smacked his fist against the streetlight pole. “ _Bitch_.” He wasn’t sure if his anger stemmed more from her sudden flight – with his very expensive vehicle – or from his intense sensation of embarrassment. The feeling of being used was new to him – he was always the one _using_. But she’d expertly tricked him into feeling wanted, taking advantage of his intoxication, and the music, and the desire to close to someone, to _her_ , that she had to have sensed emanating from him.

Sick dread settled into his stomach, slowly, keeping pace with his anger and embarrassment. It was one-thirty. Six and a half hours until he had to meet with Snoke, and the girl was gone.

***

If the flushed sense of embarrassment and dread that he’d felt all night was uncomfortable, Ben’s meeting with Snoke at early the next morning was worse. It was awkward and tense, at once. Ben wasn’t sure if he felt more uncomfortable or afraid, standing in front of Snoke’s bed.

“She left.” He had a splitting hangover and he knew he looked it. He’d slept in his jeans and button-up, on the couch. The bed had smelled like her and he’d hated it the way he hated her, right now. “She got me drunk and stole my car.”

“That’s disappointing.” Snoke didn’t look up from his newspaper.

“It was.”

“You are disappointing, not the fact of her leaving.” He set the newspaper down on his embroidered bedspread, neatly folding it. “She doesn’t have anywhere to run. Phasma can find her, I am sure.” He cocked his head at Ben. “I don’t think it would be prudent to send you to retrieve her, considering your lack of good judgment doing the simplest tasks recently.”

“She was… never simple.” Ben started the sentence belligerently, and ended it lamely.

Snoke studied him. His body was infirm, but those dark, shining eyes revealed a mind that was as sharp as any young man’s. “You care about her.”

Ben shifted. When he ran a hand over his hair, he realized his fingers were shaking. “Why did you give me that file?”

Snoke’s gaze didn’t break. “I wanted to show you what she was.”

“You must have known I would feel sorry for her.” Ben hedged. Snoke’s lips twisted.

“Actually, I intended quite the opposite. I surmised from your insolence that you wanted the girl for yourself. I thought if you saw what she was you wouldn’t want her anymore.” His eyes narrowed. “You can’t seriously want a whore like that. And you can’t think that she would ever want _you_ or any man.” Ben flushed despite himself, as Snoke went on, twisting the signet ring on his long, decrepit finger. “I assumed you would be disgusted and lose interest. I suppose I misjudged you. You always surprise me, Ben, but _compassion_.” He laughed. “That’s not something I ever expected from you.”

“I’m not a monster.” Ben felt the urge to defend himself, suddenly.

“No, but I thought we were making progress together. You know I’ve been grooming you to take a more… active role in our organization.”

“What if I don’t want to?” Ben felt foolishly brave. “What if I’m not interested in child sex trafficking?”

“Well.” Snoke’s voice lost its almost playful tone. It was as if he had been a cat toying with a mouse, and now he intended to gnaw the mouse’s head off. “You’ll have to reconsider.”

Ben’s fists clenched and unclenched. “Maybe.”

“Yes.” Snoke picked up the newspaper again. “You may leave.”

Stunned, Ben stared at him. “That’s it?”

“I said you may leave.”

Ben’s surprise at escaping without any punishment was short lived. Just outside the door of Snoke’s bedroom a fist colliding with his abdomen, making him grunt and double over. The next blow hit his head and his knees buckled a little.

He looked up, to see Hux standing over him, fist pulling back to strike again.

The door was still open and he knew Snoke could hear each blow as it fell. He could taste blood. It was useless to defend himself – two men stood behind Hux, not participating, but waiting to see if he would do something stupid.

“Ben.” Snoke’s voice carried. He sounded almost regretful. “This is only a taste of what the girl will get when she is found. If you had brought her safely back to me, she would be untouched. But she will be punished, for your stupidity.”

Ben almost vomited, perhaps from Snoke’s words, perhaps from the kick to his stomach. Bracing himself on his shaking arms, he looked up at Hux. The man’s face was twisted slightly.

“I’ll enjoy it, too, Ben.” His boot crunched down on Ben’s fingers, making him hiss and curse. “I’ll enjoy punishing her.”

At that, something snapped, and Ben tried to stagger to his feet to _kill_ Hux. His punch swung wide, and the two other men took that as their cue, stepping in.

Eventually, the onslaught stopped, and Hux spat on him. Ben closed his eyes, hearing the man’s move away. The two other nameless men lifted him under his arms, dragging him down the stairs and to the door. He was dropped in an unceremonious heap by the door. He knelt there, breathing hard, for a few moments. It ached to move.

He wiped some blood from his lip, feeling his face. The majority of the blows had been to his stomach and back. They’d spared his face, perhaps to avoid any suspicion that would inevitably arise at the hospital. Resting his hands on his thighs, he took a deep breath. It made his ribs hurt.

His anger at the girl had dissipated, and any lingering loyalty he felt to Snoke with it. They would find her, she knew. And they would hurt her. He stood up, slowly, painfully. He took the doorknob, and wrenched it open, then stepped out into the rainy morning.

On the steps, he nearly ran into the woman he’d meet at the hospital. She was smoking a cigarette, relaxing in a chair on the antebellum porch. Her eyes flickered over to him.

“I thought I might see you here by yourself this morning.” She said, conversationally, flicking ash onto the wooden planks of the porch. “Gone, is she?”

“Yes.” Ben glared at her. “What’s it to you?”

The woman’s expression softened, to his surprise. “I would rather be the one to find her, you know.” She took a long drag of her cigarette. “I wouldn’t hurt her. Hux will.”

Ben stared out at the rain. “He won’t find her.”

“Yes, he will.” The woman said, matter-of-factly. “She has nowhere to go. She doesn’t know anything else. Unkar and I took care of her from when she was a little girl.” She tilted her head back, looking very tired. “She’ll come home to me.”

“She killed Unkar.” Ben said, pointedly. The woman laughed, teeth pointed.

“Yes. Well, Unkar probably raped her.” She sounded incredibly blasé. “But I never hurt her. I was kind to her. I always made sure she had medical care and that her customers played by the rules. She knows how to find me. She knows what she is, and she’s knows she’ll never really be free of that. So she’ll come back to me. They always do.”

***

As Ben walked home, he tried in vain to guess where she could have gone. She had no name, no friends, no family. She had his card. It was nearly impossible to envision her next move when he knew – bitterly – that he really knew nothing about her. Everything he’d thought he’d known had been a ploy to escape.

His loft was quiet and dim, the sunlight that should have been streaming through the large windows blocked out by clouds. Pacing back and forth, Ben thought so hard that his head hurt. He cursed. He shouted, wordlessly, just to release some of the rage building up in his chest. He couldn’t fathom where she had gone, as, he was sure, she had intended.

After two hours of pacing – punching the wall twice – he couldn’t take it. He would wander the city until he found her, need be. But he couldn’t stay here, knowing Hux and Snoke’s other cronies were prowling the streets like predatory animals.

Feeling better at having a plan, even if it was a ridiculous one, Ben yanked open his sock drawer and felt around for his pistol.

It, too, was gone. Of course. He deflated. She’d taken this too, for protection, in her flight. The thought comforted him, rather than enrage him.

A thought pricked at his consciousness, and he went into the living room. The manila folder marked _R.E.Y._ was missing from where he _knew_ he’d left it on the counter. An uneasiness came across him, and the woman he’d encountered, again, on the porch of Snoke’s house came to mind. Her words came back to him. _She knows where to find me._ He thought of the girl's fierce anger when she described the night she'd killed Unkar Plutt, and the way she'd cried at the jazz club, thinking of the next day. 

And suddenly, Ben thought he knew why the girl had taken the gun.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feedback very appreciated! It's about to get crazy up in here. Ben's got feelings, Rey's on a warpath, Hux is on the hunt, phew. And note the rating change. There will will be blood. And sex.


	8. Chapter 8

Ben lingered on the street corner for a long time, watching men come and go. He was full of nervous energy, alternately leaning on a building and pacing in circles. Girls came and went with patrons out of the warehouse across the street from him. Some cars drifted by, barely stopping as someone darted in. Through it all two burly men stood at the door, watchfully.

Only one woman he saw approaching the warehouse, wearing a dark hooded sweatshirt. His heart jumped into his throat, wondering if it was her, but her gait was all wrong. It was aggressive and purposeful.  

He shrunk against the wall as the woman grew closer, to avoid being seen. He needn’t have bothered. She didn’t look at him, stalking single-mindedly towards the door. One of the men extended his arm, effectively blocking her. She paused, and she yanked her hood down. Her hair was tied back in a tight bun as if she was about to attack a difficult task and needed to focus. The dim light fell across the planes of her face, and he _knew_ them.

His hunch – and his pretense of looking for a place to find a prostitute – had paid off. She had come. Ben sprang off the wall, but before he could shout, or move closer to her, the man moved his arm, and let her in, apparently also recognizing her face.

He sprinted down the block, knees almost buckling they were so stiff from standing still so long.

“I need to go in.” He gestured to the door.

“No one goes in.” The man looked bored. “Girls come out.”

“I need to go in.” Ben squared his shoulders, glad for his unusual height in this moment. He lowered the timbre of his voice to make it as menacing as possible – it was the tone he took with interns. “I have business with Phasma.”

He’d waited for someone to suggest Phasma as a possible destination to cure his loneliness, then jumped on that familiar sounding name, and gotten an address. He remembered Snoke saying that name, many times, and thought she must be the Amazonian he was familiar with.

The guard hesitated. “What’ve you got for Phasma?”

“Delivering a message.” Ben paused for full effect. “From Mr. Snoke.”

“We can deliver the message for you.”

“It’s confidential.” Ben growled, actually becoming frustrated, now. “Let me in. _Now_.”

The two men exchanged a glance, and then the one on the left wavered and stepped aside just enough for Ben to pass.

Inside the door, his ears and eyes buzzed with activity at their peripheries. The hallway was silent and dark, but a door to his left held young women – getting dressed, cleaning themselves up, sleeping, taking drugs. One of them caught his eye and jumped, seemingly surprised to see a man inside. After a long moment, she crept over to him, saying, conspiratorially, “You aren’t supposed to come in here.”

Ben swallowed, and said, thickly, “I’m looking for a girl.”

Her lips quirked, and Ben noted the lines around her eyes, showing her age, with relief. “Aren’t you all?”

“A particular girl. She just came in, wearing a sweatshirt.”

“Oh, her?” Recognition crossed the woman’s face. “She went that way.” She pointed deeper into the hallway.

Ben didn’t pause to thank her. He hurried down the hallway, towards the furthest door. It was ajar and he sensed her there, if only from the silence at that end of the highway. The rest of the hall was busy, industrious, even – he tried not to think about how this was like an assembly line, or a slaughterhouse – but it was eerily quiet at the end of the hallway.

Ben pushed the door open. Phasma was kneeling on the floor, her back to the door. Behind her was the girl, gripping Ben’s pistol in what looked like comically small hands. She was shaking, and she didn’t turn around to see who had come into the room.

“Stay back!” Her voice was shrill. “I’ll shoot her, I swear.”

“No, you won’t.” Ben snapped, his emotions from the past few hours – the fear that she was hurt, the fear that she would do something utterly _stupid_ – reaching a breaking point. She stiffened, recognizing his voice, and almost turned. He caught the side of her face, saw the tears on it. His voice softened. “Hand me the gun, kid.”

She shook her head. From behind her, he pictured her jaw clenching. He knew that resolute look.

“Okay.” He kept his voice low and soft, moving into the room and around the girl. Her eyes flickered to him and then back to Phasma. “Okay. Let me call the police.”

“No!” She took a deep breath, clearly trying to steady her shaking hands and voice. “I can’t go to the police.” Her face screwed up for a moment. “And neither can you. You _work_ for them.”

Ben didn’t bother trying to deny it. “I’m sorry, but I can’t let you do this.”

“Running errands for them again?” Her voice was barely a whisper.

“I’m done with that now, kid.” As he said it, he knew it was the truth, consequences be damned. “Let me help you. Give me the gun.”

“Leave.” She squeezed her eyes shut for a brief moment.

“No.” Ben squatted in front of Phasma. She’d been silent and still as a statute throughout, but now she met his eyes. Hers were resolute.

“I knew she’d find me.” There was a hint of humor in her voice. Her eyes moved over to the table across the room. “I just didn’t have time to grab my own weapon, or she’d be dead now.”

“Lucky, I guess.” Ben said, quietly. “Tell her what you told me?”

“Excuse me?”

“Tell her about how you were kind to her. You took care of her.”

“Ben.” The girl sputtered. “She – she _sold me_.”

“She’s right.” Phasma sounded very calm. “In any case I’m not going to negotiate with a whore.”

Ben stood up, knees cracking. Phasma stared resolutely at his thighs, refusing to look up. Holding his face in his hands for a moment, Ben exhaled slowly. “Okay.” He wasn’t sure if he was talking to himself. “Kid, you probably have fifteen minutes before someone comes looking for her. Give me the gun, and I’ll make sure she doesn’t follow you. You, run.”

He thought he saw a flicker in her, and then she shook her head. “No.”

“Yes.” Ben stepped closer to her. She moved, so she still had a clear shot to the back of Phasma’s head. She wouldn’t look at him. He touched her hair, softly, for a moment, and then cupped her cheek with three fingers. “I know you want to run, kid.”

She looked at him, then, and he went on. “I know you want to be free.”

“You don’t know anything about me.” Her voice cracked.

He studied her for a moment. “You said you’re nobody. But you want to be somebody.” His other hand raised to the gun, and closed around her fingers. She trembled, but didn’t break eye contact with him. “Be somebody else, somewhere else. That’s what you want.” She wouldn’t let go of the gun. “And that’s what I want for you.”

Her grip loosened, and suddenly the pistol was in his hand. He let out a breath that had seemingly been trapped in his chest for minutes. “Thanks for that, kid.”

Phasma started to move, and he leveled it at her. “No. Stay put.”

He looked back at the girl. “Get out of here. You still have my keys?” She looked bewildered at what had just happened, so he just went on. “Where are you parked?”

“Two blocks South.” She looked to Phasma, and then back to him, over and over.

“Pay attention. Get in the car and drive up to the front door. Get in the passenger seat and wait for me. I’ll meet you after I deal with her.”

The girl hesitated, and then turned and left, without a word. Watching her, Ben thought there was a good chance she would get in the car, drive away, and never look back. That was all right. The important thing was that she was away from here, and removed from the possibility of killing this kneeling woman, execution style.

“So.” Phasma stood, slowly, and faced him. “Are you going to kill me now, Solo?”

“No.” Ben didn’t lower the weapon. He was surprised at how calm he felt. “I’m not. We have limited time, and I’d want to drag that out.”

She barked out a laugh. “Good joke. You don’t have the balls to kill anyone.” She moved closer to him. “You could still come back to the fold, Ben. Let the girl run.”

Ben laughed softly, menacingly. “No.”

“Sure I couldn’t convince you?”

“Like I said, we have limited time.” Ben picked up a sweatshirt that was lying on the couch, balling it up.

She cocked her head, perhaps picking up on the threat in his tone. “Why’s that?”

***

Outside, in the car, the girl heard a muffled shot, and tensed in her passenger seat of the black car. The two thugs outside the building looked at each other, and then went inside.

He was in there. She clawed impotently at the handle to the door, not sure _what_ she was going to do, but determined to get in there. Agonizing seconds passed until she managed to get the door open, and she was halfway out of it when Ben emerged from the building.

He looked eerily calm. His face was completely expressionless, and he almost looked surprised to see her. He opened the driver’s side door and slid in, still without saying a word. They pulled out onto the street and he drove, at an almost leisurely pace, down the road.

The girl stared at him, incredulous. “Did you… did you kill her?”

“I don’t want to talk about that, kid.” He looked perfectly relaxed, still, but there was an edge of steel under his voice. His eyes didn’t leave the road.

She licked her lips. “What happened?”

“I don’t really want to talk at all, right now.” He reached over the controls and punched a button. She noticed his fingers fumbling and shaking – the only sign of any distress. He saw that she noticed, and moved his hand to hide it under his thigh.

Having experienced his impressive capacity for anger, this contained, smooth facade frightened her more, somehow. The girl shrunk into the corner of the passenger seat as Duke Ellington filled the car. Ben merged onto the interstate, and she didn’t try to speak to him again.

The disc had looped around to begin again before he spoke. “This song is called Jeep’s Blues.” He sounded conversational and casual. “This is probably a good a time as any to begun cultivating your taste in music. We have a long drive ahead of us.”

She stared at him. Any distrust she’d had for him, during the few days spent in his loft, was gone. He’d gone from her untrustworthy captor, to her mysterious liberator. It had been an hour and a half, and there were still no sirens or cars following them. The highway was silent. “Where are you taking me?”

He seemed to sense that she wasn’t afraid, and he met her eyes for the first time since they’d gotten in the car. He smiled, sardonically. “Ever heard of Camp Solo?”

When she didn’t understand the joke, he clarified. “Like Camp David? The President’s – never mind. I guess you wouldn’t know that.” He laughed to himself for a second, softly. “Anyways, it’s not really a camp. It’s a summer home.”

“You own… a summer home?”

“Don’t act so surprised.” He sniffed. He adopted a pretentious tone. “I come from a _very_ good family.”

He heard her strangled, muffled giggle and shook his head, laughing in earnest now. “No, not really. It’s just a lake house in the Appalachians that my parents brought me to, every July. My dad called it Camp Solo as a stupid joke.” His voice adopted a more melancholy tone. “There’s not television, internet, phone service, nothing. It was really the only place we spent time together as a family.”

“You have happy memories there.” She said, softly, watching the occasional lights of oncoming cars cross his face. He didn’t answer for a long time.

“Yes.” He said, finally. “But more importantly, you’ll be safe there. It’s empty, eleven months of the year.” He paused, for a moment. “Actually, I’m not sure that my parents even still go there at all.”

“You don’t know?”

“We aren’t close.” The tone of his voice brooked no further inquiry. “But it’s a good enough place, for our purposes.” He shifted to lean his elbow on the window. “Get some sleep.”

“Ben.” Her voice was very small, and unsure. He couldn’t look at her, afraid of the emotions he’d feel if he did. She saw his Adam’s apple bob. “You were right, that I wanted to run.”

“I know.” He said, simply.

“But not alone.” She hedged, awkwardly. “I don’t think I ever would have had the courage, alone. I’ve never been – anywhere. I don’t even know where I’d go, or what I’d do. I couldn’t survive.”

“Yes, you could.” He sounded lost in thought. “You would have.” He came back to her, and flashed her a small, roguish smile. “You just wanted to run away with me.”

She choked back a half-sob, half-laugh. “Yes. Yes, I needed you to come with me.”

He realized she was more emotional than he’d originally thought, and reached across the center console to rest his hand over hers. “Well, I knew that, too, kid.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> See, there is a bit of Han Solo in Ben. Speaking of that guy - he's still alive in this universe! Amen. And now - all aboard to good times at Camp Solo!
> 
> Feedback, as always, is appreciated.


	9. Chapter 9

Ben watched the moonlit pine trees pass the car as he drove northeast. The swamps and humidity of Louisiana had given way to Mississippi, and then Tennessee. He could picture the way the trees smelled – crisp and clean. The air would be drier and colder, here. It had been, already, when he’d stopped for gas two hours ago.

The girl was fast asleep, her mouth slightly open. Her arms were wrapped around herself, and he found himself realizing they were unprepared for this weather. While winter in New Orleans rarely warranted anything warmer than a sweatshirt, it was colder in Tennessee. It’d be colder still where they were going. Really, they were unprepared for anything – he had nothing but credit cards, the clothes on his back, and his cell phone. Its battery was already dead. The pistol was tucked into the glove department.

He’d been absently flicking through radio stations, listening for any news. He’d read every temporary, flashing sign as they’d passed it. No one had followed them. Ben was willing to take the bet that Snoke hadn’t contacted the police. Being confident of that, he inched his cell phone out of his pocket, and called work, giving them some excuse and asking for a leave of absence.

When he hung up, he realized the conversation must have woken the girl. “Your mother died?” She asked, skeptically.

“Well, no, unfortunately.”

“ _Ben_.”

“I just needed a good excuse.” He turned on his blinker. “We need to stop and pick some stuff up.”

She peered out the window. “Where are we?”

“South of Nashville. We’ve been on the road for about seven hours.”

Wal-Mart was the only thing open at 7:00 A.M. The girl’s eyes were like saucers when they entered the nearly deserted store. While they filled the cart with food, Ben watched her skip around, grabbing things off the shelf and looking at him for approval before putting them, almost tenderly, in the cart. It occurred to him that she’d never gone grocery shopping before. This was a completely mundane chore that he avoided as much as possible, but her joy was infectious. He didn’t even have the heart to stop her put one, then two, and then three bags of potato chips in the cart. She wanted chocolate covered pretzels and cookies. He focused on practical items, like cans of soup, jars of pasta sauce, and boxes of cereal, and let her have her fun.

Clothes and winter shoes were next. Again, Ben was fascinated by her choices. The majority of the garments she hung over her arm were tomboyish at best – t-shirts, flannels, a completely unsexy plastic bagged set of Hanes panties, jeans, an over-sized, ridiculously fuzzy sweater. But a couple things were _bright_ colors, or florals, and they caught his eye.

They chose changing rooms across from each other. When Ben stepped out, she was already waiting, wearing that ridiculously large sweater and jeans, a blue stocking cap pulled over her hair. She burst into laughter. “Oh my god.”

“What?” Ben posed, hands on hips. “You don’t like plaid? The lumberjack look?”

“Not on you.” She sputtered, hand to her mouth. “Oh my god, no.”

They scoured the toiletries section next. Predictably, the girl did not collect any makeup. She grabbed hair ties, and then darted down the aisle to get something else. Ben busied himself with toothpaste, toothbrushes, and mouthwash, and when he turned around, she was back. She was studying the labels of the nearby lotion bottles as if her life depended on memorizing them, and he opened his mouth to ask if she was _really_ that torn between then, when he realized she was trying to avoid eye contact.

Sticking out from underneath the groceries – she’d clearly attempted to bury it – was a box of condoms. Mouth falling open in earnest now, he glanced at her. He thought he saw a pink tinge to her cheeks and decided that, considering he had no idea how to respond to this, it’d be better to humor her and pretend he hadn’t seen it. He knew he was blushing too, so he turned around. “Going to go grab – uh, soap.”

They checked out and she practically choked when she saw the bill. “Wal-Mart.” Ben told her, by way of explanation. “You know, they sell everything. Like, when someone’s house burns down they have to start over, they can just buy everything they need here for, like, $600 dollars.” She didn’t say anything in response to his lame attempt at humor, and it occurred to him that _this,_ these last few days, were her house burning down.

***

They were on the road shortly, the Lexus weighed down with their spoils, sipping gas station coffees and splitting a bag of potato chips. Nina Simone was on the radio, and the temperature was falling.

“It’s beautiful up here.” She mused, watching the rolling hills go by. “Even with all the leaves bare.”

“You should see it in the fall.” Ben told her. She leaned back away from the window to face him again. Her nose was pink from pressing against the cold glass.

“Where are you from, Ben?”

“D.C.” He seemed unusually willing to talk, so she took advantage of it.

“Why did you leave?”

“College.” He stretched, rotating his neck. They’d been driving for eight hours, now.

“But you didn’t go back?”

“I wanted a change.” He glanced over at her. “Wanted to be my own person. My parents were – are – pretty involved in the D.C. scene.”

“What do they do?”

“Mom, politics.” He laughed. “What else? Dad, defense contractor.”

“That sounds exciting.” She told him, reproachfully.

“It just wasn’t for me.” Ben changed the topic, unsure why she was so curious about his parents, and unwilling to talk about them any longer. “We’ll be there by four, or so. You may want to catch some more sleep.”

“Then I won’t sleep tonight.” She pointed out.

His traitorous mind went to the box of condoms that was somewhere in all of those grocery bags filling the trunk, and he shook his head, vigorously to clear it. “Still.”

“You need to sleep, too.” She clucked at him, and that made him smile to hearing her fussing over him.

“I work twelve hour shifts. This is nothing.” He turned up the music, to signal an end to this argument. “Go to sleep.”

***

She slept fitfully, on and off, for the next few hours. Sometimes, when she drifted towards consciousness, Ben’s hand was resting on her knee, or on the edge of her seat, very close to hers. She didn’t say anything, and if he knew she was awake, he didn’t show it.

She was yanked from sleep for good, rudely, by the Lexus leaving the smooth, if curving highway, and jolting onto a dirt road. Bolting upright, she stared out at the woods around them. The pines, rolling hills, and stark bare branches of Tennessee had given way to white covered everything. Through the snow, ash and beech trees rose, and rocky outcrops peeked out from under their coverings.

“Where are we?” She pressed her hand against the window, awed.

“Outside of Blacksburg, Virginia.” Ben pointed to the left of the car. “That’s all National Forest to that side. To the right is my parent’s property.”

They hit a particularly large bump in the road and the Lexus squealed in protest. Ben winced. The vehicle was not made for driving off-road – his father had always loaded up the Range Rover for excursions to Camp Solo – and the winter conditions weren’t helping.

“The house is over this ridge. We’ll get there in about twenty minutes. If I don’t kill us first.” The girl didn’t seem concerned by his predicament. She rolled down the window. “What the hell are you doing?”

“I want to feel the air.” She said, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

“The air is cold.” Ben told her, petulantly, rolling up the window using the controls on the wheel to override hers. “When we get into the house I will go inside and stay warm, and you can enjoy the cold all you want.” He shook his head at her, but the smell of the mountain had gotten in his nose already.

It made his breath catch in his throat. He associated this smell with campfires, the musty old shingle house, the way the mountain lake sparkled when the light passed through the trees. It had been a long time since he had seen the lake house covered in snow, but he had to admit, there was a bit of magic to it. The woods seemed utterly quiet, and clean. The girl seemed enchanted by this, her first encounter with snow, and he found himself enchanted by _her_ reaction.

When he parked the car next to the low and long house, blanketed in snow and next to the frozen lake, the girl practically leapt outside.

He got out, slower, surveying the kingdom of his childhood. She’d wrapped a green toggled-coat around that huge sweater, and she looked almost like a child herself, twirling in circles, kicking up the snow, sticking her tongue out to catch flakes. In another life, she could have grown up playing here, too.

“Kid.” He caught her attention. “Come inside.”

Her cheeks were fiery red. “No.” Defiantly, she turned and plopped onto the snow on her back. “I’m making a snow angel.”

Laughing despite himself, Ben walked over to stand over her. Her limbs were sprawled out over the snow, and she grinned up at him. He felt a little dizzy at this new perspective of her. She grasped a handful of snow, pulling her arm back.

“Don’t you dare.” He warned her. “I will lock you out of the house.” It was an empty threat – she seemed content to stay out in the snow forever.

She waggled her tongue at him. “Scared?”

“I don’t like the cold.” He grumbled at her, crossing his arms. He attempted to assume a dignified expression, that of someone thoroughly above engaging in a snowball fight, and suddenly a wad a cold, wet stuff hit his face. “Oh, fuck, that’s cold.”

Ben glared at her, wiping his face, and her smile faded.

“I’m sorry, I thought…” she stammered.

“You’d better be sorry.” He dropped to his knees, scooped up armfuls of snow, and dropped them on top of her, eliciting a shriek, as she realized he was going to play along. “That was not nice.”

She crawled up on her knees, snowball in hand, eyes narrowed. Her arm snaked around his shoulder, and he intercepted it before she could deposit the snowball down the back of his neck. She reached with the other arm, and they faced off for a second, straining for leverage, before – with a _woof_ – they fell onto the snow and rolled down the bank.

Ben landed, accidentally, but not unfortuitously, atop her. He’d gotten snow all down his collar, but he hardly noticed it. He could feel the warmth radiating from her even through their layers of clothes. It seemed absurd that someone so small and fragile could burn with that much heat. Her breath formed little puffs of white. They moistened his lips, and unconsciously, he let his tongue escape his mouth and collect that hint of wetness. He stared at her lips for a long second, estimating how many centimeters lay between his and hers.

She was staring at him, he was dimly aware, and he felt a deep, painful ache in his belly like loneliness – or rather, it’s cousin, longing.

“Ben.” She sounded serious, all of the sudden, and he met her eyes.

She looked frightened.

Flushing for an entirely different reason, now, he scrambled off of her, feeling like an idiot, or worse, like some sort of predator. Besides the tug of emotion in his stomach, he’d felt something else, below his stomach, and he prayed she hadn’t felt it too.

He turned away for a second, rubbing the back of his head. “Yeah, uh. Sorry.”

The woods really were unbearably quiet in the winter, he realized. He couldn’t stand it, now. She didn’t say anything, so he turned back to face her, avoiding eye contact. His voice cracked. “We should go inside and get out of these wet clothes.”

Her mouth formed a perfectly round shape.

“Fuck.” That word came out louder than he meant. “I didn’t mean it _that_ way.”

Seeing him so chagrined, she seemed to find humor in the situation. “No, I know.”

“Fuck.” He mumbled it this time, turning on his heel back towards the house. “Come on, then.”

Perhaps, he thought, humorlessly, as he tramped up the steps of the porch, knocking snow off his boots, his father’s liquor cabinet was still intact. He knew he didn’t need to be groping a twenty-year old on the ground, in the woods, like an over-excited teenager. He needed to be the adult in this situation. He needed to unload their supplies, needed a hot shower – no, a _cold_ shower – and needed a drink.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You two going to use those condoms, or what? Also, I'm literally so excited about the next few chapters (because, really, our two kiddos earned some time away from all the psycho villains) that I'll be updating frequently. Your feedback excites and encourages me so much, so keep it up!


	10. Chapter 10

Ben capped the bottle of Glenfiddich, and appreciatively sipped a bit. Whatever faults his father had had, he had wonderful taste in Scotch. He turned and settled down onto the couch, stretching out his legs. A body of his length, he decided, was not really intended to sit in a sports car, let alone for thirteen hours.

The house didn’t look as abandoned as he’d thought it might. He’d turned on the generator, and started a fire in the stone fireplace. His mother’s books were still scattered about the house, as if she’d been there just yesterday. They were collecting dust.

Tonight, dinner had been canned chili. He’d stacked their food in the cabinets, taking inventory of it. The provisions, he figured, would last for a few weeks. Long enough for him to figure out what he was going to do about this. Right now, his head hurt every time he tried to think about anything beyond that limited time period.

He heard the wooden floor creak, and looked over his shoulder. “Nice pajamas. I thought you didn’t like plaid.”

“I hope your mother doesn’t mind.” She perched lightly on the armchair across from where he reclined on the old leather sofa, running her damp hair through her fingers. Ben raised a brow at her.

“Well, she won’t. Those are my old pajamas.” He grinned. “You know, from when I was twelve and about a foot shorter.”

“Oh.” She laughed, self-consciously. “Was that your bedroom, then?”

“Yes.” Ben leaned his head back, closing his eyes for a moment. It smelled like smoke and wood in this house, like it always did. There was something a little bit different, though, and very clean and inherently _feminine_ smelling. “I like that soap.” After he said it, he realized how stupid he sounded, and cleared his throat, saying, gruffly, “Smells nice.”

When she didn’t answer, he tilted his head to the side, balancing his glass on his stomach. She was watching him, a curious look in her eyes.

“What?” She shifted, self-conscious. With any luck, she wasn’t thinking about his behavior earlier that evening, out in the snow. “What are you staring at?”

“Your face is… interesting.”

Ben barked out a laugh. “Oh.”

“I mean it in a good way.” She tucked her hands under her thighs, leaning forward precariously. The light of the fire flickered across her face. “It’s very unusual.”

“Well,” Ben couldn’t be truly offended; she was too earnest. “You have an _unusual_ way of giving a compliment.”

“I’ve seen hundreds of faces.” She bit her lip. “They all look the same, after a while. But your face is different.”

This time he didn’t try to interrupt her. He just looked at her.

“You see me, when you look at me. You _really_ see me.” She leaned back into the armchair, as if exhausted by the effort of saying it.

“Maybe,” Ben cleared his throat. “Maybe that has more to do with the way your face looks than mine.”

She colored slightly, appreciatively, with that. “No. I mean that you look at me like no one else has. Like I’m a person.”

Ben turned back to the ceiling, knowing _exactly_ how he looked at her, and feeling a guilty weight settle down in his chest. She was just a girl. True, only nine years his junior, but emotionally, and in terms of life experience, a child. She was sitting in his pajamas, looking at him with childlike trust. But in this moment, he didn’t think of her a child at all.

He heard the floor creaking, and his eyes flickered warily over to her, and then, involuntarily, his head jerked around. She had stood up and was unbuttoning her pajama top. If this was supposed to be seduction, it was completely artless – she was biting her lip, fumbling with the buttons. But clumsy though it was, it was _effective_.

Abruptly, Ben stood up and slammed the rest of his whiskey down. He walked away from her, tucking his hands into his pockets so she couldn’t see them shaking. His father’s old vinyl collection – and record player, no less – occupied the far corner of the room, and it seemed a good enough thing to pretend to be occupied with.

He picked up an old favorite, dusting it, and sliding it out of its sleeve. “My dad loves jazz. He insists on keeping this piece of shit around to play all his old vinyl. But my mom, not so much.” He was stuttering a little bit, fumbling over his words in a superhuman effort to change the topic. “She only likes one jazz singer. He used to always play it for her.”

“Who’s that?”

Ben put it on, without answering, at first. The track skipped for a second, and then begun. “Ella Fitzgerald.”

“She’s wonderful.” The girl was standing very close to him, the open edge of her pajama top brushing his arms. Ben swallowed, hard, looking down at her naked breasts, despite himself.

“She’s… incomparable.”

“Ben.” She barely whispered his name, one hand fluttering up to rest on his chest.

“Please.” He managed to croak. “You don’t need to do this.”

She stepped back, looking instantly offended. “I don’t _think_ I have to.”

“I just…” Ben waived his hands in her general direction, impotently. “You’re so… young.”

She crossed her arms over her chest, and now that her breasts were covered, Ben felt it was marginally safer to look at her.

“You can’t… you don’t want to have sex with me.” He was becoming flustered. “You just don’t know anything else.”

Her face went pale with rage at that and he instantly regretted backing himself into a corner, unable to escape should she lunge for him.

“Let me just be clear, are you turning me down because I’m a child or because I’m whore?”

“Jesus Christ.” Ben mumbled into his hands. “That is not what I meant.” He rubbed his face for a long second. “Neither.”

“Then what?” She put her hands on her hips, revealing her breasts again, and Ben sprang forward, grabbing the edges of the open top and wrapping them closed around her.

“Put those away, I can’t… focus with them out.” He put his hands on her shoulders backed to towards the couch to sit, and then stood in front of her, keeping a safe distance. “I can’t focus because I look at you, and I want to, I just…” His fingers knotted in his hair, compulsively. “I can’t let you have sex with you just because you feel like you owe me.”

The room was quiet, but for the fire, for a long time. Ben finally shifted. “I’m going to go to sleep.”

“Ben, wait.” She rose off of the couch, catching his sleeve. This time, she didn’t make an effort to expose herself. “Please.”

He let her hold him in place, reluctantly.

“Please don’t take away my choice in this. All my life I haven’t had any choice in what I do. Please don’t tell me I can’t chose this.” Her lip quivered. “Please don’t tell me I’m not capable of choosing this.” Her voice caught then, and he caught her up in his arms. She continued to talk, muffled, into his chest. “I want so badly not to be broken. I want to be able to choose this and be okay with it.”

Wordlessly, Ben kissed the top of her head, running his hand up and down her back. He could feel her tears soaking through his shirt, as he rocked on his heels, back and forth. She pulled away first, to look at him, and he moved one hand to wipe away the tears under her eye with the pad of this thumb.

“I am giving you a choice.” He told her, quietly. “But I’m asking you to think about it, and be really sure. Because if you ever regretted sleeping with me, it’d probably kill me.”

She let out a strangled laugh. “I’ve thought about it. I’ve thought about it all day.”

Ben exhaled slowly, leaning his forehead on hers. He had to bend to do that, and her small hands crept tentatively over his hunched shoulders to run over the tense muscles there, and then to cup the nape of his neck.

He kept his eyes closed, but when he slid his hands against her bare waist, he could picture it all. He could picture how small her ribcage was compared to his hands. He could picture where each bruise fell – one on the right, and another, half-moon shaped, under her right breast. He opened his eyes and traced them.

“Please don’t look at the bruises.” She sounded nervous.

Feeling a twinge of guilt, Ben bit back his response and let his hands run over her breasts, instead, above the worst of the bruises. That was enough to quell his reservations, at least momentarily. He felt her relax into his hands, arms wrapping around his head and trapping his face between her shoulder and neck, so that he couldn’t look at her torso while he ran his palms over it. She was simultaneously malleable and all hard edges. He could run his fingers over her ribs and collarbone, but her skin was soft and pliant. He slid one hand around to the small of her bare back, and felt it _arch_ , sharply.

The sound of the screen door crashing open reverberated through the house and he whipped around, yanking his hands free of her pajamas, heart hammering. He’d felt a stab of fear, that someone had followed them, but that was instantly replaced by utter mortification.

His parents were standing in the doorway of the house, staring at him as if he’d risen from the dead and somehow appeared to them as a vision, in their living room, with a half-naked woman.

“Ben?”

“Jesus, Mom.” Ben groaned. The girl turned completely scarlet, frozen in place, her arms covering her torso. “This is just fucking perfect, isn’t it?”

“Watch your language.” Leia, his small but very formidable mother was barely even looking at him, staring around him at the girl. “What are you doing here?”

“I…” Ben realized he had no good excuse thought up, and just decided to use a pared down version of the truth. “My friend, she’s in trouble.”

His mother scowled, but he thought he detected a glimmer of vengeful delight in her brown eyes. “Is your _friend_ pregnant, Ben?”

“Mom!” Ben glared at her. “No.”

“Oh.” Leia looked vaguely disappointed.

“Look, honey, she may not be pregnant, but we can’t blame him for not trying.” His father, Han, who was grayer and older than he remembered, but no less handsome, told his mother. He spoke in a sarcastic, exaggerated whisper, intended to make both Ben and the girl blush.

“Nice to see you too, Dad.” Ben glared at him. “What are you even doing here?”

“This is our summer house!”

“It’s _January_.” Ben seethed.

“Yes, it’s January, and you’re feeling up some girl in our living room!” His mother exploded.

Ben groaned, prepared for one of her famous rants. “I didn’t expect you to be here. She needed somewhere to go.”

“Why?”

Ben knew, from vast experience, that the only way to neuter his mother’s rage was to invoke her sympathy – a fundamental weakness he’d inherited from her, likely – so he took a chance. “I can’t tell you. But it’s serious, and she stays here until I figure it out.” She was his mother, but he projected any authority he had towards her, willing her to cave and drop the subject.

His mother glowered at him, and then her shoulders relaxed a little. She scanned the girl with a  critical eye. When she scolded him again, it felt less truly angry. “Why didn’t you tell us you had a girlfriend?”

“Mom, we don’t talk.” Ben told her, pointedly. “And she’s not my girlfriend.”

Leia rolled her eyes at Han. “Sure.”

“Well, _Ben_.” His father had taken on that pointed, almost-mocking tone that had always made the teenaged Ben fly into a rage. “Why don’t you get your head out of your ass and introduce us to your _not- girlfriend_ , now that she’s had a chance to button up her shirt?”

Ben could feel the embarrassment radiating off of the girl, but there was something else, too – curiosity. She was watching them, fascinated by this dynamic. He briefly considered whether they should just leave now, and make a break for the Canadian border, and then thought better of it.

He couldn’t very well introduce her as a nameless girl, though. He hoped the girl would supply something, but she didn’t, so he grasped onto the other thing he knew for sure about her name – her initials. Helplessly gestured between the three people who he’d never intended to cross paths, he introduced them.

“These are my parents, Han and Leia. Mom, Dad… this is Rey.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ah, yisss, enter my favorite Star Wars character. And let the awkwardness begin! Also, phew, I get to start referring to Rey by name.


	11. Chapter 11

Ben stood in the doorway to his childhood bedroom, holding an armful of clothes and toiletries. The girl was sitting between the twin beds, her lap full of Han’s enormous, geriatric golden retriever, Chewie. The second Han had let it out of the Land Rover the night before, it had bolted straight for the girl, and hadn’t left her side since.

“I think you made a friend for life.” Ben commented. The girl looked up, startled. She rubbed her neck, awkwardly, cheeks pink. “What’s… up?”

“Do you mind if I sleep in here?” He gestured to the matched set of twin beds. “My parents booted me out of the master bedroom.”

Her eyes narrowed slightly at him. “Isn’t there a pullout in your dad’s study?”

“Well…” He shifted in the doorway. “It’s probably easier to just let them think you’re my girlfriend, rather than try to explain… things.”

She shrugged her acquiesce and gestured to the second bed, purposefully occupying herself with stroking Chewie’s head as Ben settled in. He tossed his things on it, then sat, rubbing his hands over his knees, when a high whistle rang through the house. Chewie’s ears pricked, and suddenly, he was gone. Ben knew his destination – the foot of his parents bed, where he’d snore and take up an untoward amount of space.

She didn’t have anything to busy herself with, now, and that seemed to make her uncomfortable. Those pajamas were buttoned up just about as high as they could go, and she’d wound her wet hair up in a knot. She began fastidiously unpacking and neatening her new things, and he wondered if she wasn’t doing so in an effort to avoid talking to him.

“Hey.” He crooked his finger at her when she looked. “Come here.”

She walked between the beds and he reached out and caught her hips, pulling her between his knees. She rested her hands gingerly in his hair when he pressed his face against her diaphragm, squirming as his hot breath seeped through the flannel and tickled her.

“Ben.”

“Mmm?” He was unbuttoning, from the bottom up, this time, nuzzling his face into her belly. Something warm and wet - his tongue – dipped into her navel for a moment, making her shudder. At his height, even sitting, he could almost crane his neck up and rub his face into her breasts – that thought was particularly appealing, so he tried it.

She grabbed his hair, hard, and pulled him away.

“We shouldn’t.”

“That’s my line.” Ben deadpanned, his hands spanning her hips. She shifted away when he tried to reach lower. “We can close the door.”

“We _really_ should not do this.”

Ben pulled back from her as if he’d been burned. The guilt over misinterpreting her hesitation was scalding. “I’m sorry, I thought – I thought you just didn’t want to because my parents are here.”

Her face was bright red now. “No.”

“No.” He repeated after her, as if convincing himself.

“I thought some more about it.” She stammered. “And you’re right. We shouldn’t.”

Ben didn’t know what to say, so he just laid back on the twin bed. After a second he heard her go into the bathroom and brush her teeth. When she came back out he’d recovered his dignity, a bit, and gotten his overwhelming sense of guilt about just _grabbing_ her and _assuming_ like that under control.

She turned off the lights, and they lay there in silence, for what felt like a long time.

Finally, the awkward silence was too much to bear – and he knew she was awake – so he joked, “So… I told you so?”

He heard her laugh. “You can say it. I was being stupid.”

“No, I was stupid.” Ben meant it when he said it. “I’m sorry, kid.”

There was a long pause, and then she said, quietly, “You know, you can call me Rey, even when we’re alone. I… like it, actually.”

“Really?” He felt a strange lightness in his chest.

“Really. Goodnight, Ben.”

“Night, Rey.”

It was the most unsatisfying _I told you so_ , and the most unsatisfying night he’d had in a long time. He unzipped his jeans, sliding them down his hips. At the sound of the zipper he thought her heard her suck in a breath. It was very quiet in the room. He could hear the old mattresses creaking obscenely every time she rolled over, and he wondered if his parents were awake, listening for a creaking mattress.

He heard when her body nestled into the old mattress and imagined her nestling into his side, crammed onto that tiny twin mattress with him. All of the planes of their bodies would have to touch for them both to fit on this mattress, he imagined.

He gripped himself through his boxers, wondering if she was asleep.

***

Rey padded into the kitchen of the lake house, uncharacteristically wide awake at six in the morning. The birds here were so loud that she didn’t understand how Ben could sleep on, slack-jawed, under a mountain of quilts.

 _Rey. Rey, Rey, Rey._ Saying that one syllable sent happy shivers down her spine. She’d never had one word to herself before, she’d never even heard this word, and she _loved_ it. She mumbled it under her breath as she looked for the coffee tin.

“Morning.” A deep, gravelly voice said her behind her. She shrieked, dropping the coffee mug she’d been taking from the cabinet.

Han raised a brow at her. His grayed hair was rumpled, and he had glasses on. “Didn’t mean to surprise you… again.”

Rey felt herself flush. “I didn’t expect anyone awake this early.”

“I’m always awake early.” Han grumbled, shooing her and making the drip coffee himself. “It’s the only time of the day I have to myself to think. I love my wife but she’s a pain in my fucking ass.”

“I won’t bother you.” Rey assured him, completely certain that he either despised her, or that he really was as awful as Ben seemed to think he was.

“You aren’t bothering me. I haven’t been married to you for thirty years.”

Han took his coffee and drifted into the living room. Rey hesitated, and then followed him. He was fiddling with his record player. Besides Ben, she couldn’t remember being alone in a room with man who didn’t pose a serious threat to her. Most men looked at her like she was prey, but Ben’s father had an almost _purposeful_ indifference to her. It made her feel less uncomfortable. And, in some way, his mannerisms – grouchiness and all – reminded her of Ben.  

“Does Ben subject you to his terrible taste in music?”

Rey perched on the couch, wrapping her hands around her coffee mug. Chewie deposited himself at her feet, covering them and keeping them warm with his vast amount of fur. “He told me you were the one who introduced him to jazz?”

It might have been her imagination, but she thought she saw him freeze for a second. “Ben listens to jazz?”

“It’s all he listens to.”

There was a long, uncomfortable silence, until the Miles Davis vinyl started spinning. It occurred to Rey that this man did not know Ben, as a man, and had only known him as a child. A strange sensation like jealousy sprang up in her throat. Whatever falling out he had had with his parents, it was clear they’d taken care of him and loved him.

“So.” Han put glasses low on the bridge of his nose, and settled into the couch. “You’re the first girl Ben’s ever brought home.” He snorted. “Though I guess he didn’t mean to.”

Rey’s mind raced. “Not really.” Ben was right, she grudgingly admitted to herself. It was probably better to at least pretend they were dating.

“So, what was it, his winning personality, or his dashing good looks?” If anyone else had said this, she would have known, immediately, that it was truly a joke. When Han Solo said it, there was a kernel of truth – and anger – there. When she didn’t answer, he told her, with a wink, “I can only take credit for one of those things.”

“The personality, right?” Rey said, brightly. Han laughed, loudly, throwing his head back.

“I like you. Ben needs someone who can take the shit out of him.”

“Han, stop harassing Ben’s girlfriend.” Leia appeared in the doorway to the kitchen, looking decidedly less perky than Han. She was wearing a fluffy white bathrobe, hair piled on top of her head in a huge bun.

“Did you sleep well?” Apparently, though, she was more decorous than her husband, even first thing in the morning.

“We can hear everything in this house.” Han interjected.

“Don’t be so crude, Han. Did you sleep well?”

“Yes.” Rey said, weakly. Already, her charade was becoming exhausting.

“Well, I don’t cook, so my husband is going to make us breakfast.” Leia said, matter-of-factly, folding herself elegantly into an armchair. “I need to read some reports.”

Han went into the kitchen, and Leia had clearly issued what sounded like a dismissal. Rey wandered back down the hallway to the bedroom, Chewie padding along beside her. She was itching to put on boots and a jacket and go out into the woods. She’d never been surrounded by so much green and empty space, and it was exciting, but intimidating. Maybe Han would let her take Chewie along – she didn’t feel quite ready to be alone, in the middle of all that nothing, but she was enticed by the idea of exploring the mountainside and lakeshore.

Without thinking to knock, she opened the bedroom door, wondering if Ben was still asleep. 

There was a sudden flurry of activity - Ben cursing, pulling his hand away from his member like he'd been burned, yanking the comforter over himself, and cursing some more. It took a second to register exactly what she was seeing. Chewie barked at him, confused by this development, and Rey’s mouth fell open.

“Wait, were you-”

“Would it kill you to knock?” He glared at her, holding the comforter over his lap.

She pressed her hands to her cheeks. “Oh my god.”

“It’s perfectly normal.” He grumbled, but he didn’t meet her eyes. His face was red, and she wasn’t sure if it was from embarrassment or exertion.

“Right. Um, your father is making breakfast.”

“I’ll just have coffee.”

She turned to leave, and then whipped back around. “Wait – is this because of yesterday?”

“Is what-” He caught her vague gesture towards his crotch. “Oh.”

“I’m sorry.” She was still embarrassed, but now she looked chagrined. “I didn’t mean to leave you…” She trailed off. “I didn’t mean to change my mind.”

Ben looked at her for a long moment. “You don’t have to feel bad. I’m… glad you feel like you can say no me. Anyways, I can take care of myself.”

“Right.” She laughed awkwardly. “I’ll just go to the kitchen now and we can pretend this never happened.”

He laughed, but before she walked out of the room, he said, seriously and quietly, “Rey.”

“Yes?” She hung back.

“Since this conversation never happened… This wasn’t because of _yesterday_.” His voice sounded thick. “It’s because I laid awake all night, thinking about you.”

“Oh.” Rey closed her eyes for a second, feeling a little light-headed. “I…”

Ben seemed to remember himself, cutting her off. “Remember, we aren’t having this conversation. I just wanted to tell you.”

“Thank you.” Rey backed out of the room and closed the door, then leaned on it. The heat that spread down her cheeks wasn’t from embarrassment, she didn’t think. It was ticklish, and it spread down her neck to her sternum. Her sweater felt unbearably warm, even in the drafty old house. She knew _arousal_ because she’d seen it written all across men’s faces, over and over, but she’d never felt this flushed, tingly heat before – in her chest, in her stomach, between her legs. Even last night, when she’d impulsively unbuttoned her pajamas, she’d felt more of a curiosity, an ache to understand something she’d never understood before. But this – this was new.

Chewie licked her hand, and she jumped.

“Shhh.” She told him, walking back down the hall on shaky legs. “That’s a secret.”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wondering how long I can make this unresolved sexual tension last? I CAN GO FOREVER. No, I'm kidding, I wouldn't do that to you, readers. P.S. Yes, Han is a totally charming DILF, and Chewie is a golden retriever. 
> 
> Feedback appreciated :)


	12. Chapter 12

 

Rey tramped through the woods, arms wrapped around herself. Chewie was galloping ahead of her, thrilled to be taken out on an adventure. Ben had described to her the two-mile dirt trail that circled the lake. In the snow, it was difficult to follow, but she traced the edge of the water, trusting that Chewie knew his way.

She’d left Ben and his parents alone – Ben’s eyes had followed her reproachfully as she left the house – because she’d felt almost smothered by all of the conversation and attention. Leia had become considerably more talkative after coffee and pancakes, peppering her with questions about her life. Inventing answers to all of those questions was a strain, and it was disconcerting, the way Leia watched her, dark eyes – like Ben’s – intent and bright. She barely even blinked, her chin resting on her small palm as she regarded this woman that she assumed her son was involved with.

A couple of questions, Rey had stumbled on the answer to, and she thought she’d seen suspicion in Leia’s eyes, but the older woman hadn’t said anything. She simply looked at her, appraisingly, as if she was still forming an opinion.

Han was much less intense than his wife. He joked with Rey, putting her instantly at ease, somehow. Ben had whispered to her that his father clearly trusted Cherie as a judge of character, and though it was a joke, Rey believed it.

Rey found Han and Leia’s interactions with their son to be, oddly, even more tense than their scrutiny of her. Leia was surprisingly tender towards him – gently brushing her hand over his shoulder or hair when he sat at the breakfast table, which made him flinch. There was a softness in her eyes when she looked at him, but she also spoke to him as if he were a teenager. Ben, for his part, was all hard edges.

There was no softness between Han and Ben. The two spoke to each other gruffly, and avoided eye contact. When she’d left the house, Han was doing a crossword, and Ben was tinkering with the old VCR player to try and make it work. They were in the same room, but had their backs to each other, and in Ben’s broad, bent back she could see all of his tension built up.

These family dynamics were, in many ways, difficult for her to understand. She could read the signals each member of the Solo family was sending – Leia was regretful, Han bitter, and Ben angry – but she could not fathom _why_. The only memories of anyone treating her kindly were her memories of Unkar Plutt’s first wife. Marla had been her name.

Marla had tried to raise her, in her own way, she knew. When she’d been just a little girl, she’d lived in their house, and Marla had kept her from becoming a feral animal. There’d been no affection, per se, and of course, whenever Unkar needed her, Marla willingly gave her up, but she’d been fed and bathed, and given books to read and a stuffed animal or two. All of that had changed when she’d hit puberty, and Unkar divorced Marla.

Before Marla and Unkar, there was just buzzing black silence in her mind. She tried to imagine a family – parents, like Han and Leia were to Ben – but nothing came to mind. No one that she could remember had ever taken her to the lake in the summer, or stroked her tangled hair, or taught her about music, or bought her a puppy. No one had ever paid enough attention to her to be angry or hurt by her. Perhaps that was what struck her most about this family – the intense emotion they all carried around and projected at each other.

Never before had she been aware of longing for that kind of emotion. But something twinged in her when she thought about how Leia looked at Ben.

“Rey!” The sound of someone shouting her name – _her_ name, it still gave her shivers – started a flock of birds. They went up in a great rush, through the trees and across the lake. Rey turned.

Ben was walking down the trail towards her.

“I told you I could find my way just fine.” She told him, pointedly, as he approached her.

Ben looked at his watch. “It’s a two mile trail. You’ve been gone for forty-five minutes.”

“I have a lot on my mind.”

“Mind if I walk with you?” She assented, silently, and after a few minute of strolling quietly, he diverged from the trail, towards the shore of the lake. Chewie ran circles around him as he stood, stoically looking out at the lake.

“My parents are going to be here for at least another week.” He said, finally. “My mother took a leave of absence.”

Rey walked closer and stood at his elbow. Their breaths blew out twin clouds of air.

“They’ve been separated.” He said, finally.

Rey started. “Do you mean… divorced?”

“No.” He crossed his arms. “Dad’s been at a hotel for about two weeks. She took the leave of absence so they could come up here and try to… work it out.”

“What happened?” It was none of her business, she knew, but he’d obviously sought her out to talk about it. She felt strangely honored by that. He was not someone to share his confidences lightly.

“I think they grew apart. After I… grew apart from them.” He sighed and it came from a deep place in his chest. “I think she blames him for that. He and I never had a good relationship.” Her silence seemed to prompt him to go on. “I acted out, as a kid. He traveled for work, every week, and Mom was always on the Hill. I always resented him for that, and I think he always resented me, too, for tying him down. He didn’t plan on being a family man. They got pregnant when they’d only been dating for a few months, and my mom was really young. I don’t know that he would have married her, otherwise. When I was gone, maybe there wasn’t a good reason to stay together anymore.”

“I think they love each other.” She blurted out. He looked at her, surprised, and she went on. “And I think they love you.”

“We all love each other.” He didn’t look at her, eyes searching the tree line. “But it’s complicated.”

“I wouldn’t know.” She said, quietly. To her surprise, he looked over at her, and then wrapped an arm around her shoulders, tucking her into his side. He kissed the top of his head, and, after a beat, she wrapped her arm around his stomach, under his coat. They stood there for a long time, until the wind off of the lake grew too cold.

***

That night, Han and Leia taught Rey how to play poker. Ben grumbled some excuse from the living room, and Han rolled his eyes at Rey in response, making her laugh. Leia poured glasses of wine for herself and for Rey – Han poured himself whiskey – and they set about teaching the basics. Knowing what she now she about their marriage, Rey wondered if they were focusing on her, rather than each other, in an effort to avoid confrontation.

After the first round – disastrous for Rey, she’d lost a chunk of the pocket change Han had rounded up in the house – she came to Ben in the living room. He looked up from his book, and she grasped it, tugging it out of his hands. He sat up, making a low noise of protest, and she set the book aside, then put her hands on his shoulders, looking down at him through her lashes. “ _Please_.”

Ben turned out to be very good at poker. After he won the second hand, Han wordlessly poured him a glass of scotch and slid it across the table. Leis was trying to hide it, but Rey caught her _beaming_ at the group around the table every so often, before she resumed her poker face. That smile had nothing to do with her hand, Rey determined. It flickered between Ben and Han, as if she couldn’t believe she was seeing them together, playing cards, however silently.

It was past midnight when Rey headed to bed. She excused herself to the bedroom, and, realizing she’d left her sweater in the kitchen, turned around. Ben and his parents were still in the kitchen, each leaning against a different end of the countertops.

“What kind of trouble is this girl in, Ben?” It was Leia’s voice, low and serious. Instinctively, Rey slunk into the shadows, staying out of sight and listening with baited breath.

“She got caught in a bad situation.” Ben’s voice was a low rumble. “And I respect her privacy too much to say any more than that.”

“Do you love her?”

“I respect _my_ privacy too much to tell you that.” Ben sounded amused, rather than defensive, to Rey’s surprise.

 “How long are you two going to stay here?”

“Mom, can you just trust me and not ask so many questions about this?” Now, he sounded exasperated. Rey couldn’t see his face.

“It’s hard to trust you, Ben.” His mother was tearful. Ben didn’t seem to have a response, and there was a long silence.

“She seems very young.” That was Han. “I have a bad feeling about this.”

Rey heard Ben push himself off the counter, and the floor creaked. She slunk backwards.

“You two have enough to worry about, apparently.” Ben sounded angry, now. “And you, Dad, you haven’t made a habit of worrying about me for almost thirty years, so don’t start now.”

“Ben!” Leia snapped. But he was already moving out of the kitchen and down the hall. Rey could hear him. She scrambled into the bedroom, and just seconds behind her, he flew in, the door banging the wall.

He didn’t say anything, kicking off his shoes, yanking off his shirt, and stalking into the bathroom. He came back into the bedroom, flopping onto the bed on his back and closing his eyes. At first, Rey was indignant that he was ignoring her, but then she saw his fists, slowly clenching and unclenching by his sides. She could her Leia and Han’s voices rising in anger, and then falling, from across the house.

He looked up when she sat on the edge of his bed, one of his eyebrows rising. She laid a hand on his thigh and felt him flinch.

“Are you okay?”

“Don’t worry about it.” He shut his eyes again, arms crossing over his bare chest.

 “Can I help?”

His eyebrow went even _higher_. “What?”

She slid her hand up his thigh, by way of answering, and he clamped him own hand down over hers, before she reached the apex. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“I want to.” Rey twisted her had away, fumbling for his zipper. “We don’t have to sleep together, but I’m good at this and it will make you feel better.”

“This is not about making me feel better.” He sounded weak, trying to grab her hand away.

“Why not?” She argued, managing to get his jeans’ button unfastened. “That’s as good a reason as any for a blow job.”

He shot upright, practically shoving her away.

“First of all, let’s not call it a _blow job_.” His face was pale. “If you do that to me it’s not a _job_. And the right reason to do it is because you care about someone and want to make them feel good.”

“I want to make you feel good.” She couldn’t bring herself to say, I care about you, but she knew it was implicit. She saw him hesitate, felt the temptation tugging at his resolve.

“How is this…” He trailed off as her fingers snaked inside his open fly and he pulled them out before she could make contact with his skin, his grip bone-crushing. It was a moment of Herculean self-control. “I thought you didn’t want to have sex.”

“This is different.” She sounded almost prim.

“It’s not different to me.” Ben held his ground, reaching down and zipping up his jeans. They were uncomfortably tight at the moment, but the pain kept his head level. “And you should know I’ve decided that I have very specific conditions, before _I_ will have sex with _you_.”

“Excuse me?” Rey choked out. Ben sat up straight and drew in a deep breath as if bracing himself.

 “You can’t go down on me.” He told her, sternly. “And I want to go down on you. I want it to be slow and I want to look at your face. And I need to kiss you first.” Her mouth was gaping open. "We’re never going to do this if what you want is what you’re used to. I need to be different than any other man.”

Rey floundered for a moment. “I’m not… comfortable with any of that. I don’t know how to to do that.”

“That’s the point.” Ben told her mouth set in a deeply stubborn line. “So, take it or leave it.”

Rey stared at him for a long second. “You are unbelievable.”

He stared right back, stubborn as hell, and then she artlessly lunged forward, nearly missing but grasping his cheeks at the last minute to orient herself, and pressed her mouth against his.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OH MAN. What could possibly go wrong?


	13. Chapter 13

The kiss was over nearly before it began, and it involved altogether too much force and teeth clacking against each other. Rey had half missed Ben’s mouth, and when she pulled away from it, he was grinning. No, worse – now he was _laughing_. She flushed from her hairline to her toes, a deep sense of embarrassment swamping her. She yanked her arm away from his.

“No, no,” He pulled her back in, enveloping her in his arms even as she fought him, humiliated. “That was nice.”

“This was your idea.” She snapped, still bright pink, withdrawing from his. He ran his hands up and down her arms and she pushed one away. “ _Stop_.”

“Do you really want me to stop or are you just mad?” She just glared at him. He grinned again, his bad mood of just minutes before totally forgotten. “We can try again.”

She glared even harder at him, pride wounded, but finally muttered. “Fine.”

Ben laughed again. This time, it was a nice sound to hear, not a harbinger of her embarrassment.

His hands, when he wrapped them around the back of her head, were so big they went from ear to ear. His fingers splayed from the nape of her neck to the top of her head, and she suddenly realized that he could snap her neck, right there. He could grip her head in his palms and twist. She barely even realized he was leaning forward, but he noticed the distracted look on her face. “Rey?”

“Kiss me.” She said, stubbornly.

He did; very softly, very quickly. She barely had time to close her eyes. They popped back open again, she was about to exclaim _is that it_ , and he kissed her again, harder, deeper, this time.

“That one.” She leaned forward and he caught her shoulders, kissing her again. His arms wrapped around her again, making her feel very small and a little bit trapped.

“Okay.” She wiggled an arm free of his grip, and planted a hand on his chest, pushing him away. “I kissed you.”

“Yeah.” He looked downright boyish, hands still lingering on her elbows.

“Now will you have sex with me?” She asked him, an edge of sarcasm in her words.

“Let me kiss you some more.” He teased. “It’ll only take me a few hours.”

Rey huffed, pulling away and standing up the bed, raising her arms over her head and shimmying out of her shirt. Her bra joined it on the floor in an unceremonious heap, and then her jeans and panties. He didn’t stop her this time, but he didn’t touch her or say anything, either.

Usually, undressing for someone was businesslike – even for those men who told her they liked to watch that – during which she tried to avoid eye contact, so that was how she undressed now. When she was naked she finally looked at him.

His eyes had gone very dark and dilated. “I would’ve liked to do that.”

“Where do you want me?”

He frowned at her, the spell of her nakedness nearly broken. “I don’t want you to talk to me like that.” He didn’t say it, but they both knew what he meant – as if he’d paid her and could have whatever his money would buy.

Rey brushed her fingers over his shoulder apologetically, and he caught her wrist, kissing the inside of it and feeling her pulse jump. “I mean your, uh, conditions.”

“Right.” His voice cracked. “Um, lay down here.” He scooted off of the narrow bed and gestured to it, awkwardly. She instantly laid on her stomach, arms tucked against herself somewhat protectively. “No, I mean on your back.”

“Right.” She looked practically miserable with embarrassment, rolling onto her back and blinking up at the ceiling. Ben realized, looking down at her from the foot of the bed, that this was very nearly as awkward as the night he’d lost his virginity, a clumsy sixteen-year-old in the backseat of his father’s borrowed car.

She propped herself up on her elbows, eyebrows puckering together, and he realized he’d stood there long enough to make her self-conscious. He thought she was probably self-conscious, laying in this vulnerable position. She was probably nervous about what they were about to do. And he knew that on some level, she was afraid that he found her repulsive. She was looking at him now with _that_ particular vulnerability in her hazel eyes, and he wanted, no, _needed_ to reassure her that he wanted her. He wanted to say that to her – _don’t worry. I want you. I want you despite what has happened to you._

Instinctively, he knew that if he said those things, she would be lost to him, at least for tonight. She would take his reassurances to mean that he _was_ thinking about her past. Just acknowledging it would be enough to convince her that he was thinking about that, and not about _her_.

She’d said something peculiar to him, the night before. _When you look at me, you really see me._ Watching her unwittingly telegraph her fears on her face, lying naked on a bed in front of him, he thought he finally understood that strange statement. She wanted, badly, to be seen and wanted as a person, and she was afraid that now that they’d come to _this_ moment, he couldn’t do that.

Folding his long body, he knelt at the foot of the bed, grasping one foot in his hand. It arched under his grip, her ankle trembling slightly. It reminded him of the way her legs had trembled in the hospital bed, when he’d examined her sprained ankle. Whether she was again trembling from just fear, or adrenaline was a contributing factor, it still worried him.

She was watching him as if afraid that, if she took her eyes off of him for one moment, things would suddenly spiral horribly out of control. Ben tugged her ankle. “Lay back.”

She hesitated.

“Trust me.”

Slowly, she laid back. He saw her bare abdomen tremble above him as he grasped her other foot in his other hand, tugging her slowly down the bed. She flinched when she felt his breath near her. Her thighs were trembling violently when he ran his hands up from her ankles to her hips.

“Ben.” Her voice was high pitched. He brushed his knuckles against the soft fuzz between her thighs, and she twitched, this time, not from apprehension, but sensation. He tried it again, his whole palm grazing her, then fingers trailing through. “ _Ben_.”

He’d heard her say his name angrily, jokingly, even tenderly, or so he imagined and hoped, but never like this – breathily and in anticipation. She looked down at him, eyes very wide and now more curious than afraid.

“Can I kiss you here?” His eyebrow quirked at her, and she bit her lip, nodding, then sunk down onto the mattress, looking at the ceiling.

It didn’t last very long. She knew, because she was in the habit of counting, to distract herself, to challenge herself – how long could she stay still and act calm?

 _One._ His nose was entirely too big, it bumped against her in an ungraceful way. _Two._ A kiss right above her pubic bone. _Three._ Hot breath and then his mouth, hot _and_ wet. _Four_.  Tongue. Maybe she shuddered involuntary, because he kept doing that. _Five – or was that six?_ She lost count.

The tension in her body hadn’t abated, although now she wasn’t afraid that this would unpleasant. It kept building until it snapped, like a twitch and then a stiffening. It made her shoulders press back into the mattress, and her scalp tingle, and her stomach clench. A sound like a whimper escaped her lips, even though she’d kept her mouth tightly shut.

If this was what she’d seen screwing up men’s faces for years, then it wasn’t what she expected. It wasn’t ecstasy and agony, like she’d heard. She hadn’t struggled or strained to get to it. It felt like being submerged in bathwater – gradual, warm, pleasant all over her body.

Ben rose from the floor like a creature emerging from the sea, shaking his hair out of his face and crawling up the narrow bed on top of her. She kissed him, now, panting against his mouth. She felt his self-satisfied grin instead of seeing it, and opened her eyes, finally.

“Hi.” His grin was just as cocksure as it had felt.

“Hi.” She cocked her head at him. “That was different than I expected.”

He kissed the tip of her nose, by way of answering. Now that he was on the bed, on top of her, she could feel his erection prodding her stomach through his jeans. “I bought condoms.”

Ben raised his brows at her. “I know.”

“Oh.” She flushed. “You didn’t say anything.”

He kissed her quickly, before rolling off of her.  Standing up, he unzipped his jeans and kicked them off. He could feel her eyes on him as he bent and riffled through his suitcase. “Oh – _fuck_.”

“What?” She had her arms folded over her chest.

“I put them in my parent’s bathroom.”

“What?”

“Before I knew they would be here.” He explained, hastily. 

They looked at each other for a long moment, and then she wiggled her fingers to call him over. “I could…”

Ben shook his head. “We have a deal.”

“You don’t have to be so noble.” Rey pointed out, crossly.

“I told you, I’m not being noble.” He sat on the edge of the bed, taking her head in his hands and running his hands down her overgrown hair, smoothing it over her ears and cheek. They regarded each other for a long moment, and then he leaned forward and chastely kissed her forehead. 

“I’m going to sleep in the other bed.”

“Okay.” She stared at him as he crossed the room, and he could feel her eyes on him in the darkness for a long time after the lights went out. He thought of the box of condoms, not, in fact, in Han and Leia’s bathroom, but rather, in his suitcase, tucked carefully under his shirts, and he closed his eyes.

***

Leia commented on how long Ben’s hair had grown, the next morning, over breakfast, and he grudgingly agreed to let her crop it off. It was touching his shoulders, nearly, and growing unrulier by the day. Rey watched, clandestinely, from the living room. He was in a wooden kitchen chair, head tilted back over the sink, while she fluttered around him with sewing shears. Leia moved around him like a planet in orbit, like she’d done this many times before.

When he stood up, rubbing a damp towel over his newly short hair, he caught Rey staring.

“It still covers my God-awful ears, right?” He gave her a crooked smile.

“It looks okay.”

“Do you hear that, Mom, you’re getting rusty. Apparently, it’s just okay.” He tossed the towel into the sink. Leia clucked.

“I am not _rusty_.” She sounded testy. She frowned at Rey, then cocked her head, catching the younger woman fingering the ends of her long hair. “Come here.”

Leia, despite her size, was a commanding presence, and Rey trotted into the kitchen obediently. Ben’s mother pushed her into the chair. “Lean back. Your hair looks like it hasn’t been cut in years.”

“I’ve been busy.” Rey closed her eyes, flinching, at first, at the feeling of Leia’s small, strong hangs soaking her hair in the sink.

It was surprisingly intimate to have her hair washed, combed, and cut. It felt almost as intimate as the night before, but in a way that was completely foreign to Rey. Sex, she understood, on an elemental level, if not an emotional level. But feeling soft, maternal hands work through her curls, stroking stray beads of water away from her eyes and brow occasionally was completely alien to her. Leia was humming, quietly, running her hands through her curls. She felt her throat close and bob.

“I always wanted a girl. Ben has a _full_ head of hair, but it’s not the same.” She sounded affectionate, but somewhat sad. “I would’ve loved to have a daughter, to braid her hair. Did your mother do your hair for you, as a little girl?”

That put her over the edge, moved her to tears, her throat jerking in uncontrollably as she tried not to sob audibly. Leia drew in a quick breath, and then she felt the towel gently dab the moisture that had escaped her eyes.

Rey got herself under control, and when her hair was cut – swinging around her shoulders, now, light and curling easily – she finally opened her eyes.

“Your hair is beautiful.” Leia’s eyes were very bright; the way Ben’s were when he looked at her. She stroked Rey’s hair, instinctively, the way she touched her son’s head when he was seated and within her reach. “My son is a lucky man.”

Leia moved away, giving her privacy while she got her emotions under control. Sitting there, towel wrapped around her neck while her hair dried – Ben reading, taking up the whole couch, and Han listening to John Coltrane in the next room, Chewie curled up by the fireplace snoring, and the snow falling outside the windows – Rey closed her eyes. She’d always been isolated, by nature and by nurture, and for the first time since she’d been in the lake house with these three people, she didn’t feel that the room was too small, that they were suffocating her. She didn’t feel the urge to run away, or to walk through the woods for a long time to clear her head. She wanted to be here, and now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologize for the delay. It is always a bit of struggle for me to determine how much detail I include in an sex scene. I don't like to take away from the narrative by providing unnecessary detail, but at the same time, yeah, it's a sex scene, so it's supposed to be, you know, sexy. So next time - less detail? More? (Assuming Ben gets his head out of his ass and stops hiding the condoms... hmmm...)


	14. Chapter 14

Chopping firewood was probably the healthiest way to work out his sexual frustration, at this point. Ben swung and hacked until his arms and back ached, but it was better than being in the same room as her. All day he’d wanted to put his arm around her, or kiss her neck, or play with her fingers, but unable or unwilling under Leia’s hawkish eyes and Han’s disdainful glances.

Besides his physical frustration, when he was in the same room as her, he had to grapple with strange new emotions. Watching Rey laugh at his father’s jokes, Chewie’s head on her knee, or seeing her help Leia make dinner and completely botching it, made his heart ache in a way it hadn’t since he was a child, anxious and desperate for his frequently absentee father’s affection. He wasn’t close to his family, to say the least, but seeing Rey integrate so easily with his parents – and seeing her barely disguised longing to be accepted by them – was surprisingly emotional for him.

“Ben!”

He reeled around at the sound of his father’s voice, ax still in his hand. Han made a face at him as he approached, kicking the snow with his feet.

“You want to put that thing down, kid?”

Ben jumped a little. He’d forgotten where he’d picked up that nickname – not really a term of endearment, really, but rather one of Han’s sardonic signatures. He lowered the axe. “What do you want?”

Han grunted, probably a comment on his son’s rudeness. He leaned down as if inspecting the pile of chopped wood, and Ben knew he was stalling. He’d never really thought of his father as shorter than he was, but here they were. Han seemed much less imposing than he had ten years ago.

“We need to talk about Rey.”

“What about her?” Ben crossed his arms over his chest.

“Come on, Ben. You haven’t been here since you were seventeen. You’ve barely spoken to us since you were eighteen. Whatever trouble she’s in, it’s bad enough to make you come here, and,” He grinned but it didn’t reach his eyes. “Put up with your parents, who you hate –”

“I don’t hate you, Dad.” Ben hated how pained his voice sounded. He’d intended to sound exasperated.

“Either she is something really special, or she’s in really deep shit back home.”

Ben deflated. “Why do you care?”

“She’s a nice kid.” Han said stubbornly. Ben glared at him. Anyone observing them would have noted the exact similarity in posture and countenance at that moment. They faced off, to see whose stubborn streak ran deeper. Han broke first, softening. “You’re my _son_ , Ben. Let me help you.”

“I don’t need your help.” Ben turned around and went back to chopping wood, this time with renewed vigor.

“Right, that’s why you’re holed in my summer house. In January. You _hate_ the cold.”

 _Like you._ Ben swung harder, feeling the satisfying crack of a log reverberate up his arms.

“Let us help the girl, then.”

That stopped him. Realizing that he had his son’s attention, finally, Han went on. “We can take her back to D.C. Get her help. Your mother is well-connected enough.”

Ben rounded on him. “What makes you think she needs help?”

Han rubbed his chin. “She’s not really your girlfriend, Ben. That was obvious after about fifteen minutes. First of all, she’s too attractive for you. Second, she can’t answer basic questions about herself without lying through her teeth. She has a British accent but doesn’t know the first thing _about_ Europe. She doesn’t understand any of my cultural references. So, either she’s from outer space, or someplace bad.”

Ben frowned at his feet. He’d spent enough time with Rey, at this point, to have grown accustomed to her. He’d forgotten that she acted as if she was experiencing everything for the first time, and failed to calculate how obvious that would be to his parents.

It was not worth it to deny that Rey was lying about who she was. His parents were too shrewd.

“So, what, you think she’s a troubled kid and you just want to help her out of the goodness of your heart?” Ben asked him, sarcastically.

“It’s what your mother wants.”

“She hardly had time to take care of _me_ , now she’s suddenly wants to take care of Rey?”

Han practically exploded, to his surprise. “She wants her son back! You haven’t spoken to her in years, and suddenly, this girl shows up. Because of her, you’re speaking to your mother again. She’s a politician. Of course she doesn’t want to give up the only bargaining chip she has with you.”

Ben shoved away the guilt that gnawed at him. “I’m not coming back to D.C.”

“Yes, you will. That girl is too important to you. And you know it’s what’s best for her.”

Han was right. He couldn’t take the girl back to New Orleans. He hadn’t planned on holing up at the lake house forever, but, truthfully, he had nowhere else to take her. His father had him where he wanted it, and he hated it. With a low growl, he turned around and threw the ax by the handle. It skidded across the snow, embedding itself in the exposed dirt by the base of a tree.

Han knew he had won, then, from long experience. Ben lost control when he’d been defeated. He was not one to surrender with grace – but it meant that his resolve was broken when he lashed out in anger.

***

Rey was furious when she realized what was going on. If Ben hadn’t clamped his hand down on her knee to keep her on the couch when the whole Solo family convened upon her in the living room, she would have bolted.

“Rey,” Leia began, diplomatically. “We want to get you some help.”

Rey laughed nervously. “For what?”

“Rey, they know.” Ben waited for her reaction. The blood drained from her face.

“You told them?” Her eyes filled with tears, and she did jump up now, fists balled. “How could you?”

“I guessed, kiddo.” Han spoke up. “Don’t blame him. He’s an ass, but he kept your secret.”

She sank down onto the couch, wrapping her arms around herself. “How did you know?”

“You’re a terrible liar.” Han managed to sound blithe, even in this tense conversation. “I figured either you were involved in drugs or you were in the business, and you haven’t been going through withdrawals.”

Rey had lived her entire life with an umbrella of shame over her. But realizing that these people – people who had treated her with the kind of kindness no one else ever had – knew what she was more acute than she could have imagined. “I promise.” She gulped down the lump in her throat. “I was not – by choice –”

Ben’s hand closed over the back of her neck and rubbed it gently. “I made sure they knew that. It’s okay.”

She gave a shuddering sob, an odd sense of relief that she didn’t have to be the one to explain the odd tragedy that was her life.

“Rey,” Leia, ever the politician, sounded as if she’d practiced this speech. “We all think it’s best if you come back to D.C. with us at the end of the week. We can find you help. You’ll be safe there.”

Her eyes flickered to Ben. “Are you coming?” She asked him, in an accusatory tone. Ben hesitated, and suddenly, there were tears in her eyes. She didn’t seem to care that his parents were sitting on the couch across from them. “You’re leaving me.”

“I’m not leaving you.” Ben argued. “And I haven’t made up my mind, yet.”

Rey turned back to Han and Leia. “I won’t go if he doesn’t come.”

“Ben.” Lea pleaded, quietly. He met her eyes. “Please.”

Ben groaned, lowering his hands into his head for a moment. His voice was muffled through them. “I’ll come.”

Leia was in tears when he looked up, and he thought he saw Rey smile a little bit at him. Apparently, he was forgiven for staging this conversation. He laced his hand through hers.

“So, will you come?” He knew the answer already, from the way she was looking at him.

“I’ll come.”

***

Everyone was in a good mood that night. Rey felt has if a weight had been lifted off of her sternum. She felt as if she could float across the floorboards, so she did, a little, while one of Han’s old records played after dinner.

Han noticed her and dramatically swept over to her, extending his hand and swinging her around in a circle. She laughed out loud, delighted, as they danced around the living room. “Ben did not inherit this.”

“No,” Han agreed. He gestured with his chin towards the door. “But surely even my stick in the mud son can’t turn down a dance with such an enchanting creature.”

Ben, who’d been standing in the doorway, rolled his eyes. Rey caught him, and he looked bashful.

“Ben.” Han handed her off to his son. “Make your old man proud and dance with the lady.”

“You haven’t had enough to drink for this.” Rey commented, as she stepped into Ben’s arms.

“Not nearly.” He agreed, slowing down their pace. “I’m afraid I’m neither as charming nor as good of a dancer as my father.”

She laughed. “No, you aren’t.”

Somewhat clumsily, he spun her. When she came back in, she was very close to his chest. “He’s so nice. Your dad.”

“I can be nice.” Ben told her, so softly that his parents couldn’t hear from the kitchen. “I can be nice to you tonight, if you want.”

“What if I don’t want you to be _nice_?” She insinuated, hiding a smile.

He chuckled. “Well, that’s up for debate.” He leaned his cheek against her hair. “A debate that, I feel I should warn you, I will win.”

“Always have to have your way.” She huffed at him, her cheek against his chest. He didn’t respond, so she looked up. She was expecting to see him smiling down at her, in keeping with their lighthearted banter, but he wasn’t. His eyes were very serious and dark.

“No, I don’t.”

“Excuse me?”

“I haven’t had my way with you.” He almost whispered it in her ear, keeping up appearances of dancing in case his parents glanced towards them. “If I had my way with you, you’d be on your knees and with that hair –” he stroked it, briefly, as he spoke, “ – in my fist. You’d be sore the next morning.” He wet his lips. “I’d have you scream my name, not just say it.”

It was a moment of weakness, to admit to her base desires. Telling her how he wanted her – really wanted her, all of his pure intentions aside – was intoxicating, and the second he’d opened his mouth, he hadn’t been able to stop, even as he felt her stop dancing, and stiffen under his hands.

Rey looked confused. “ _What_?”

He pulled his hands away from her, suddenly deeply regretting that moment of honesty. “I’m sorry – I didn’t mean to…” He trailed off. “I shouldn’t have told you that.”

She turned and walked away, without responding. Chewie groaned from the fireside, stood up, and lumbered after her. Ben might have imagined it, but he thought the dog gave him a reproachful look.

“Christ, Ben.” His father came back in, handing him a glass of Scotch. “I gave you an in there, and you blew it. What happened?”

Without answering, Ben took the whiskey, and slammed it down.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh come on, you didn't think Ben's intentions were *that* pure did you? Also, this story is going to go in a direction you might not expect in the next three or so chapters. But, I think you're really going to like it! So stay tuned, and give me your much-appreciated feedback.


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're going to go ahead and earn the E warning right about now.

“Rey, I’m sorry.” Ben tried apologizing for the third time that night. Rey’s eyes flickered to his through the mirror, and then she went back to brushing her teeth with an intensity he was shocked didn’t make her gums bleed.

“Rey.” He trailed after her into the bedroom, like a remorseful puppy. “Please, let me explain.”

She whipped around and he almost tripped on her.

“Go ahead.” She said, scathingly. “Explain the fact that your sexual fantasy sounds _exactly_ like the way I told you I was raped the night I went to the hospital.”

Ben felt his stomach bottom out, and he instinctively reached for her, but she flinched away. “I didn’t think before I said that. I’m an idiot.”

‘It’s not that you _said_ it!” She shoved his chest, abruptly. “It’s that you’re _thinking_ it.”

He was a little perturbed. “Look, I’m sorry I made you uncomfortable. But I am not going to apologize for _thinking_ about you that way.”

“But that’s not how I want you to think about me!” She wailed.

Now, he was more than a little perturbed. He tried to stop his index finger from poking in her chest, but it seemed to do so of its own accord. “You’re the one that keeps trying to get me in bed. You can’t have it both ways. You can’t want me to fuck you and then get angry when I tell you how I want to fuck you.”

“It’s more complicated than that!” She shouted.

“Why?” He roared, well aware that they were reaching volumes that his parents couldn’t even pretend to ignore. “Why does it have to be so fucking complicated with you? One second you want me, the next second you act like I’m, I’m…” He sputtered out. “You act like I threatened to _rape_ you. You seriously think, after all this _fucking_ time, that I would force you.”

“That’s not what I think!”

“Then what is it?” He stopped the wild pacing he’d begun and sat down on the bed, arms braced on his knees. “What?”

She looked very nervous all of the sudden. “I want…”

“Yes?” He bit out, beginning to get a handle on his temper.

She pressed her fingers over her eyes. “It’s not that I don’t want you to think about me. I want… I want you to think about me in a different way.” When she lowered her fingers, her eyes were wet. Her chin wobbled. “I want you to want to think about making love to me.”

“Rey,” He softened, holding out his hand. She let him pull her to sit next to him. “You know I do… care about you.” That _other_ word almost spilled out and he contained it, alarmed.

She nodded at the floor, hands clasped between her knees.

 “But I know what I like, and that’s not necessarily what you deserve.” He cleared his throat, awkwardly.  “That’s why I’ve been holding you off. I hid the condoms from you. I tried to set rules for how we would do this. But those rules weren’t really for you. I've been trying to stop myself from doing something that I _know_  I would just fuck up. And then I slip up and tell you what I want, and you look at me like..." He trailed off, helplessly. 

She looked at him, sharply, but he thought she understood. 

“I don’t… make love.” The words tasted funny and awkward. “I am not a good man. And you scare me.” He touched her chin. Her gaze didn’t waver. “I’m afraid that if I give _you_ what you want, it’s going to turn into what _I_ want. You would hate it."

Rey studied him for a long time, then gave a heaving sigh and leaned into him. “You’re not the one who should be scared.”

He laughed weakly, and didn’t answer her.

They slept in the same bed that night, without consulting each other, and it was ridiculously cramped and hot. She’d stripped off her pajama pants and he his shirt. She had to lay mostly atop him to fit on the bed, but she fit neatly into the crook of his arm doing that. He could feel her particularly deep and self-pitying sighs tickle his clavicle.

Rey was distracting enough, sprawled across him like this, without these thoughts plaguing him. He replayed the sexual encounters he’d had, in his adult life. The theme was obvious – he never really looked at her face. Even if she refused to get on her knees, he’d look away while he fucked her. She never stayed the night. The memories brought a sense of self-aware guilt, but also, inconveniently, a touch of arousal.

With a little grunt, she rolled over onto her side, forcing him to shift so he wouldn’t fall of the bed. Her back was pressed flush against his stomach and groin, and he felt his face turn red in the dark. She had to know, now, what he was thinking about. The evidence was inescapable in this position.

She didn’t seem surprised, rather, she nestled deeper into the cocoon of his much larger body, curled around hers. She grabbed his arm and wound it around her stomach. When his fingers splayed out they spanned from her hip bone to her ribcage. Her breathing was too shallow – she wasn’t sleepy.

Ben could have been lying there, feeling her breath in and out, for a minute or an hour. But at some point, his hand, seemingly of its own volition, wandered up from her ribcage to her breast, cupping it through her shirt. He was brushing his lips over the place where her neck and shoulder met as he rubbed her nipple through the fabric, almost absentmindedly. She squirmed, feeling the fingers of his other hand drift lower to the juncture of her thighs. He rubbed the heel of his palm there, through the fabric of her underwear, causing unexpectedly pleasant friction.

His hand was cold when it slipped into her underwear, making her gasp and squirm. That made him hesitate for a moment. “Can I?”

“Mmph.” She was at a loss for words, face half buried in a pillow. Torturously, a long finger slid down the outside of her lips down there, rubbing circles, and then pushing up and into her, crooking and stretching her inside. His digit moved back and forward for a second, and then withdrew, and dragged a wet trail underneath her shirt, up her abdomen, and between her breasts.

He was leaving a mark on her neck, she knew, without looking. She could feel his teeth, feel how desperate he was. His hands were almost too rough on her now, kneading her breasts, making her flinch. “Not so hard.”

Ben withdrew, immediately. She rolled over to face him, nearly pushing him off the bed. Her eyes were very bright in the dim room, and, thinking she was looking for some sort of explanation or apology, he opened his mouth. She chose that moment to press her mouth against his, still feeling completely inept and inexperienced at kissing.

Reluctantly, he kissed her back, but he didn’t try to touch her.

“You don’t have to stop.” She whispered against his mouth, running her hands down between their bodies to where he was jutting against her hip bone, and resting her hand just over him. He made a funny noise in the back of his throat and bucked his hips forward, into her hand.

 “Good, because I don’t think I can stop.” He was panting a little. “Hold on.”

It took a great amount of control to roll away from her and off the bed. He scrambled for the condoms in his suitcase and then came back to her, stopping, hooking his thumbs in his underwear, and kicking them off along the way.

Rey sat up and started to peel off her t-shirt, and then stopped, remembering something. She held her arms up expectantly. “You can do it this time.”

He reached over and peeled the t-shirt over her head, throwing it behind him.  When she laid back down, gripped the sides of her panties and lifted her effortlessly, sliding the fabric over her bottom and down her legs. He slowly untangled the underwear from her feet, caressing them as he pulled them free. When he set each foot down, he set them apart from each other, and knelt in the V he’d created between her legs.

She sat up, propping herself on one arm, and pressed a finger to the tip of him, experimentally. It was damp, there, so she absently rubbed the liquid off onto the top of his shaft. He twitched against her fingers, but he didn’t pull away. It was too dark to see much, but she could explore with her hands, and, for the moment at least, he seemed willing to indulge her curiosity, so she did. His breath hitched periodically, but he didn’t stop her.

After a few moments, she withdrew her hand, saying, almost politely, “You are very… proportional.”

He laughed, startled. “Now _that_ is not something I’ve ever heard in bed.”

“I meant it as a compliment.” She defended herself, glad he couldn’t see her blush. She thought of what he’d said in her ear while they’d been dancing and knew there were plenty of things he’d _rather_ hear in bed – wicked, dirty things.

Ben leaned forward and kissed her, pressing a hand against her sternum and pushing her back onto the bed. “Wait and see if I’m any good before you compliment me. I’ve never done this before.”

She laughed nervously, watching him roll on the condom. “What?”

“I mean,” He fell forward, catching himself on his hands and wiggling his hips to wedge in between her thighs. His breath was very hot on her face when he kissed her. “I’ve never tried to make love to a woman before.”

Rey wrapped her arms around his head, fingers knotting in his hair, blinking rapidly. She tried to say something and just choked up. He was propped up on one arm, kissing and nibbling down the column of her neck, his free hand fumbling in between them. She felt his member press up against her, and miss, sliding up and down the slick length of her sex instead. He mumbled a curse into her neck, both at missing what he was aiming for, and because the mistake had felt _good_.

Rey was tensed up, anticipating that he would find the right angle this time. Her whole body was wound tightly, the muscles in her legs starting to tremble and ache a little.

“Relax.” He mumbled, into her hair. “I’m not going to be able to get inside without hurting you if you don’t relax a little.”

 She exhaled, trying to let loose tension in her body. It seemed to be enough –  she felt him press an inch inside of her, breathing raggedly.

Suddenly, a loud noise, like a _crack,_ made her go completely tense again. Ben stiffened, pulled out, and raised his head. “What the fuck what that?”

Another whizzing sound, and then the window of the bedroom shattered. Ben hunched over her, immediately, hissing as he felt glass fall on his back. “Get on the floor.” He practically pushed her off the bed, throwing the blanket to her as he stood and grabbed his jeans. “And stay there.”

“Ben,” She tried to stand up and he pushed her back down. “This is my fault. They’re looking for me.”

He ignored her, yanking on his shirt and checking the bullets in his pistol. His blood was hammering in his ears, but he felt oddly calm, the way he had when he’d shot Phasma in the kneecap. His hands weren’t even shaking as he handled the weapon.

“Ben!” Rey looked nearly hysterical. “Don’t go out there. Let me just leave with them.”

“Ben.” Han burst through the door, Chewie on his heels, hair wild, hunting rifle loaded and ready. He looked completely unafraid, and he asked for no explanation. He didn’t even blink at the sight of Rey, wrapped in nothing but a blanket. “We’ve got company.”

 Ben nodded, cocking his pistol. He glanced back at Rey where she huddled on the floor, naked under the blanket. Her whole face was pleading with him, tear stained now. “Please.”

He gave her a crooked smile. “Sorry, kid. But I won’t give you up without a fight.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gunshots are the ultimate cock-block, amirite? Obviously, Ben and Rey are on different pages (for very good reason). That's not going to resolve right away and result in perfect, fairytale sex, but I did want a bit of payoff before the shit REALLY hit the fan. So hold on and let me know what you think!


	16. Chapter 16

Another shot pinged out in the darkness as Ben and Han moved towards the door.

“Worth it to try and negotiate with these guys?” Han sounded almost conversational.

“No.” Ben shifted forward in the darkness, and was met, suddenly with an elbow in his ribs. He grunted and raised the pistol, only to hear a short, huffed laugh.

“For God’s sake, Ben, don’t shoot me.” It was Leia. She stepped closer. “It’s me.”

Ben lowered the pistol, knowing she couldn’t see his face, but unable to hide the exasperation in his voice. “Mom, go get Rey, go out the window, and go into the woods.”

He couldn’t be sure, but he thought Leia scowled at him in the darkness. He heard her tap on something metal.

“This is a cast iron pan.” She told him, crisply. “But if you’d like I’ll trade you for the pistol.”

Ben almost laughed. “Are you serious?”

“Of course I’m serious.” She turned to her husband. “Do you think you can give me cover if I go and talk to them?”

“Mom.” Now he wasn’t exasperated, he was panicky. “You can’t do that.”

His parents ignored him.

“Well, yeah, but is that really your brightest idea?” Han equally as calm as his wife.

“Oh, please.” Leia illuminated her flashlight. She was in her bathrobe, hair tied up in a bun, makeup washed off but replaced by a fierce expression. “I’m a lobbyist.”

She moved towards the door. “Anyone makes a wrong move towards me, shoot ‘em.”

“Honey,” Han’s characteristic sarcasm, which had held up surprisingly well, even in this situation, broke for a moment. “Watch yourself.”

She nodded. She opened the door, and it was surprisingly quiet outside it. Using the filtered light from the porch lamp, Ben and Han shrunk to opposite windows, flanking her.

“Hello.” She sounded as if she was meeting a Senator for lunch to pitch a bill, although she was shouting. “Please have the decency to not shoot me.”

There was a long silence, and then a man stepped out of the trees. “I apologize for the late hour, Mrs. Solo.”

“It’s Organa, actually.” Leia sounded perfectly calm.  She didn’t move off of the porch. “I didn’t take my husband’s last name. And your name is?”

“Hux.” Ben supplied to his father, under his breath, recognizing the voice.

“I’m here on an errand for Mr. Snoke.” Hux sounded equally as silky as Leia. “That is, _we_ are here on an errand for Mr. Snoke.” There was an implicit threat in his emphasis.

“And _we_ are enjoying our vacation.” Leia crossed her arms over her chest. “So I’ll kindly ask you to get off my property.”

“Your son is here.” Hux said, blandly. “He has something of ours.”

“My son is estranged from me.” Leia sounded equally flat. “You’re at the wrong house.”

“Ms. Organa.” Hux moved closer to the light. Through the window Ben could see his smile. It was the kind of smile that twisted his lips in a funny way. It made Ben’ stomach turn. “I assure you I am not.”

There was a long pause, and Ben saw his father’s fingers twitch as Hutch moved even closer to the house. He could count two vehicles parked a bit down the dirt road, partly hidden by the trees. Two men were lingering by them, casually holding rifles. Ben knew there were more, standing among the dark trees, possibly surrounding them.

Mentally cursing his parents for buying property out of reach of any cell phone tower, Ben shifted his weight.

Suddenly, a small figure darted out from behind the house, and he tensed up. He saw Han flinch and hissed, “Don’t shoot.”

“Hey!” It was Rey. She clearly meant to sound intimidating, but her voice sounded high pitched and strangled. It echoed in the empty woods.

Hux turned, brows rising. “What a surprise.”

“Leave them alone.” Her voice wobbled. “It’s me you want.”

“Charming.” Hux drawled, changing directions and now moving towards Rey. “But I’m afraid my colleague has a score to settle with Ben.”

“Let him be.” She seemed more resolute now. “And I’ll leave with you.”

Hux’s lip curled over his teeth, making him look wolfish. “ _Stupid_ girl. You really think you could bargain for his life with yours? You are of such little significance, it’s laughable. You’re just a whore. But Ben was a friend, and Mr. Snoke doesn’t take it well when his friends betray him.”

Ben saw her blanch, at the word _friend,_ but she stepped closer to Hux as if to threaten him. “You’re bluffing. You need me.”

Hux regarded her for a second, then lunged at her, grabbing her wrist. She tried to turn, but he was too fast for her, yanking her against him and almost gently resting a gun on her temple.

“You’re right.” He panted. “I do need you.” He looked at the house, wetting his lips. “Solo!” He shouted now, all of his silkiness gone. “Come out here, or the girl dies.”

The seconds that passed seemed the longest of Rey’s life. Leia had raised the cast iron pan she was holding, impotently, her eyes flickering over the trees, as if she was calculating the risk of being shot down if she rushed Hux.

The door to the lake house creaked, and Rey exhaled, feeling irrationally relieved. But the man who stepped out was too short to be Ben – it was Han.

“Evening.” He moved, subtly, in front of his wife.

“Where is Ben Solo?”

“Look, pal, you just said _Solo._ ” Han was seemingly unarmed.

“Do you think this is funny?” Hux pressed the gun harder into Rey’s temple, hard enough to bruise.

“No, no…” Han rubbed his forehead. “If the girl doesn’t mean anything to you, let her go.”

“Send your son out.” Hux snapped.

“Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to make him do anything since he was a toddler.” Han walked off the porch, and suddenly, four men stepped from the shadows of the woods, easing forward, rifles still pointed at the ground, but fingers obviously itching on the triggers.

“Easy.” Han kept walking. “I’m not going to do anything stupid. You okay, kid?”

Rey managed to nod.

“Look, let me take the kid. You’re right, she’s not important.”

Hux jerked his chin towards the house. “She is to him.”

“I think you’re overestimating my son’s capacity to care for anyone besides himself.” Han snorted.

Hux had apparently had enough of this game. “Shoot his mother.”

One of the men lingering on the fringes of the drama turned the porch. “Hux.”

Hux broke Han’s gaze, finally, looking to the porch. Leia was gone.

Things happened all at once, then. Han jumped forward and grabbed Hux’s wrist, taking advantage of the red-haired man’s distraction. A shot rang out, just a second after Han had twisted Hux’s wrist to aim the gun at the stars.

The road of the Land Rover’s Engine erupted from the side of the house, and the headlights blinded them. The vehicle accelerated through the snow towards the four men surrounding Han and Rey. Leia was at the wheel, driving like a madwoman. She veered, scarcely missing Han, Rey, and Hux, making the other men in the light of the porch scatter. One of them hit the hood of the car with a sickening crunch.

Ben was on the porch, grasping his father’s hunting rifle but she didn’t see him. She was vaguely aware of popping sounds – gunshots going off, the swarm of men appearing from the woods falling back as they were shot. And then Hux whipped around, raising his pistol to her forehead.

A shot whizzed past Hux’s shoulder, so close Rey nearly _felt_ it. It was a near miss, and she heard Ben shout in anger as he re-loaded. He was too late – Hux pulled the trigger first, the muzzle of his gun aimed right at Rey.

She was paralyzed, but Han yanked her out of the way and onto the ground. Disoriented, she heard a grunt, and a thud.

He’d hit Hux, then. She rolled over, heart beating wildly – but Hux was still standing.

Han Solo was laying on the ground, a puddle of blood growing around his head. She screamed, but that sound was nothing compared to the howl that tore out of Ben’s chest as he charged off the porch. Taken aback, Hux tried to aim at him, but Ben was like a bear, knocking him flat onto the ground and pounding him with his fists wildly. Even armed with a pistol, Hux was no match for the force of Ben’s rage. Rey watched, stunned, ears buzzing, as Hux’s face became a bloody, pulpy mess.

“Ben!” Leia ran over, trying, impotently, to pull her son off of Hux. She was sobbing. “Ben!”

He didn’t seem to hear her. He’d broken he bones of Hux’s face, but he couldn’t stop, blind and deaf to everything. Chewie, shut in the house, was barking frantically.

Rey couldn’t watch anymore. She crawled to Han across the snow, rolling him over, tears dripping onto his gray hair. He looked very peaceful, the deep seated pain that he disguised with sarcasm absent at last. She touched his face, weeping, and suddenly – he _twitched_.

“ _Leia_!” Rey staggered to her feet. “We need to get him to a hospital.”

Leia, who’d been standing there, looking between her son, beating a man to death, and husband, bleeding and presumably dead on the snow, looked at her, numbly.

“Now!” Rey screamed. “Help me.”

Together, they managed to get Han’s body into the Range Rover. Rey ran into the house and grabbed a blanket, letting Chewie escape. To her surprise, he didn’t run to Han. He circled Ben, whining and licking his cheeks, acting very distressed.

“Ben.” Finally becoming overwhelmed with emotions that had been staved off by adrenaline, Rey sobbed his name. He looked up from Hux’s body. His eyes were wild, his fists slick with blood. He looked at her, fiercely, for a long moment, and then stood up and walked, wordlessly, to the car.

They drove to the nearest hospital in silence. Leia held Han’s head on her lap in the back seat, Chewie draped over him like a rug. Rey fidgeted in the passenger seat. Ben was driving too fast, his hands shaking on the wheel, and leaving bloody handprints. He didn’t look away from the road. He didn’t say anything.

At the hospital, they were all separated. Rey yelled after Ben as they put her on a gurney – saying something about shock –  but he didn’t turn around. He stood at least a head taller than any other person in the hall, and she watched him walk all the way down it, away from her. “ _Ben_!”

“Calm down. He’ll be fine.” A woman leaned over her, eyes compassionate. “This will help you relax.”

There was a prick in her arm, and everything went blissfully quiet. She closed her eyes, taking deep, shuddering breaths.

“Good.” The woman’s voice was back. “Sleep.”

“I want Ben.” Her voice sounded very far away and small.

“He’ll come back.”

 _He’ll come back_. She repeated it in her head, like a mantra, for the few scant moments she had before the sedative claimed her, and she slipped into sleep.

***

When she woke up, she asked for him. The nurse sent her attending first, who informed her that she had no serious injuries and had simply gone into shock. She said the police needed to speak with her. 

Then, the police came in. She asked for Ben again. They responded in kind, asking her questions. The dam she’d had inside her for so long broke, and she explained who the men at the lake house were, and why they’d been hunting her. It took a long time, but to their credit, once she started talking, they didn’t interrupt her.

Then, when she was finished, she asked for him again. She was sure that now, after she had answered all of their questions, that they would let her see him. The older, kindly detective patted her shoulder. “Should I get your nurse again?”

“I want Ben.” Her stomach was starting to twist in knots. “Is he hurt?”

The older detective looked at her gently, but a little bit pityingly, as if she was a confused little girl, and it made her breath leave her body. “Ma’am, it’s over now. No one will hurt you. We have Ben Solo in custody.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't be mad. This hurts me as much as it hurts you. But don't lose heart! I swear that soon - sooner than you think! - our hero and heroine will be reunited. As for Han - you'll have to wait and see. Tell me your thoughts, the usual, etc!


	17. Chapter 17

His father seemed to have aged ten years in the past nine months.  He’d been in a coma all that time. He was paler, grayer, the wrinkles in his face relaxed for once. It seemed wrong to see him lying in a hospital bed. When Ben had been a boy his father had seemed towering. He’d exuded vitality, with tousled hair and a booming laugh.

Now, he looked very small and unlike himself.

Ben didn’t feel like himself, either. He felt too big for his skin. It was odd to have no one leaning over his shoulder.

It had been nine months since he’d been arrested. The officers had walked in while he was being skimmed over by a nurse, and he’d stood, automatically, resignedly. He hadn’t said anything as they’d cuffed him and read him his rights.

***

He hadn’t said anything at all, staring at the wall, until his mother’s lawyer came to speak to him, nine hours later. The door to the cell had opened, and he’d sprung to his feet, hoping it was Rey, or at least an announcement that his bail had been paid.

But it had just been the turtle-like old man who his other had always consulted for legal advice. Mr. Hendricks had lumbered over to the metal table, set down his brief case, and sighed deeply, not saying anything.

 “Is my mom okay? How is – how is the girl we were with?”

Mr. Hendricks had always had a smooth and unaffected voice, no matter the circumstances. “I don’t know about the girl. I think she’s being questioned by the police. But your mother is all right. Your father is out of surgery, so she’s with him.”

Ben’s mouth dropped open. “My father is alive?”

There was a rare show of emotion on Mr. Hendricks’ face. “For now, yes. They got the bullet out of his brain. He isn’t awake. He might not.” He cleared this throat, adjusting his glasses. “Not wake up, that is.”

Ben sunk back into his chair, exhaling slowly. He’d been sitting in the holding room for nine hours, remembering what it felt like to beat the life out of Hux, thinking about blood staining the snow. His father’s blood, being mingled with his killers. “I thought he was dead.”

“Well, that explains the manslaughter charge.” Ben might have been imagining it, but he thought he saw some humor in the lawyer’s eyes. Then, the older man’s face settled into a businesslike frown. Mr. Hendricks spread his hands over the table. “We should talk about the charges, Ben.”

The charges against him were lengthier than Ben expected. Some of them, Ben nodded his agreement to. Others, he scoffed, or swore – among them kidnapping.

Then, the prosecutor had come in, with an FBI agent in tow. He’d reluctantly told Ben that his victim – Ben did laugh at that, picturing Rey, and earning a glare – did not want to press charges for kidnapping.  While he was charged as an accessory to a laundry list of crimes – the prosecutor made a show of reading them all, pointedly – the only remaining serious charge was manslaughter. And, as much as the district attorney wanted to take him to trial for manslaughter the lawyer explained, grudgingly, the FBI had stepped in.

The FBI agent had taken that as his cue to step forward and offer Ben the deal. It was clear everyone else in the room had already heard it – Hendricks included. He would plead guilty to manslaughter and receive deferred adjudication. For a year, he would be on probation, and if he met all of the conditions of probation successfully, the guilty plea would be wiped off of his record.

He accepted without hearing the terms of the probation, and could see Hendricks’s shoulders sag in relief. Thinking the details would be collateral, he slumped too.

The agent brought him coffee, then, as if now he was worthy of being treated like a person. He sat down across the table and explained the terms of probation, while the prosecutor examined his nails.

“We’ll need you in New Orleans. You’ll be in protective custody, of course.” The agent misinterpreted the look on his face as fear. “We’re shutting down that whole operation, and some local affiliates, and we don’t have any other insiders.”

“Is that it?” Ben shifted, uncomfortably. “That will take a year?”

“Likely not.” The agent assured him. “But certain other standard conditions apply – can’t own a weapon, things like that. The prosecutor can explain most of it.” He drew circles on the tabletop. “If you enter the guilty plea at arraignment tomorrow, we can leave then. A federal marshal will escort you.”

Ben cleared this throat, a strange emotion settling in there and making his voice thick. “Can I say goodbye? Before I go?”

Hendricks eyebrows flew up – he was a longtime friend of the family, and he knew about the tension between Ben and his parents.

“After the arraignment, we can arrange a visit to the hospital, if you want.”

“Ben,” Hendricks touched his arm. “Your mother… when she called me and asked me to represent you, she asked me to make sure I took care of you.” He squeezed Ben’s shoulder in a fatherly way. “But she said she did not want to see you.”

Ben swallowed, hard. “What?”

Hendricks released his arm. “She doesn’t blame you –”

“Yes, she does.” Ben cut him off, sharply. “And she’s right.” He covered his face in his hands for a moment, and then dragged them over his hair. He’d been estranged from his parents for years, but this hit his gut like a punch. Leia had been the one who had always wanted him back, no matter what. She’d been the one who sent text messages and emails and phone calls that went unanswered. She’d been the one who’d been unable to hide her joy at the lake house when he unexpectedly came back to them.

“Okay.” His voice was thick. “Just tell her – tell her I’m sorry.”

“I’ll tell her, Ben.”

Ben rubbed his forehead, feeling suddenly exhausted and very old. “All right. Can I see the girl?”

“What girl?” The bored prosecutor spoke up, again, finally.

“The girl who came to the hospital with us.”

The prosecutor’s brow cocked. “The girl you kidnapped?”

Ben glared at him, forgetting the precarious position he was in. “It’s not like that. We’re… involved.”

“Regardless.” The prosecutor crossed his arms.

“Ben,” Hendricks looked like he was preparing to be the bearer of bad news. “That’s a condition of your probation. No contact with the victim.”

Ben turned from one to the other, looking at all three men in turn. “You said she didn’t want to press charges.”

“She isn’t.” Hendricks tried to sound soothing, but his client was becoming agitated, running his fingers rapidly through his hair and shifting aggressively in his chair. “It’s just a standard provision – sit down, Ben.” He was surprisingly strong for his age as he pushed Ben back into his chair. “Do not let this change your mind, Ben. This is the best offer you will get.”

Ben stared at him for a long time, breathing hard. He imagined Rey, alone, in a cell, like this one, not knowing her name, or where she’d come from, surrounded by strangers. The thought was enough to make his vision tinge red.

Finally, he turned to the prosecutor. “What will happen to her?”

“She’s not being charged with any crime, if that’s what you mean.”

“She’s going to get help, Ben.” His lawyer sounded cajoling. “This is what is best for her, Ben. This is what is best for everyone.”

***

Ben lived in a motel, with an FBI agent in the room next door, for the next nine months. During the day, he sat in the office – typically, he felt completely useless during this time – and at night he watched re-runs and tossed and turned, imagining he heard footsteps down the hall, men coming to kill him.

He made a friend. Agent Dameron – that, he found out, was the name of the agent who’d cut him a deal – was funny, and welcoming. He didn’t treat Ben like an outsider, or a criminal, the way the other agents did. He took him to lunch, and shared beers with him at the motel pool.

He thought about Rey a lot for the first few months. It kept him awake at night, wondering where she was. He fantasized about calling her – but he had no name, no phone number, no idea where she was. He had no idea if she even wanted to see him. He fantasized about her in other ways, too, to assuage the crippling loneliness he felt late at night when he was trapped in his hotel room, for his own protection, like a caged animal

And then, unceremoniously, he’d been told he could go. He’d known the sting was coming, from the questions he was asked and the preparations taking place. They hadn’t explicitly told him until after it was over.

There were three more months of his probation. Dameron helped him clean out of his old loft and put things in storage, and then he bought a plane ticket to D.C.

“Ben,” Dameron stuck out his hand at the departures gate. “Take care of yourself.”

“Yeah.” Ben grasped his hand. “You too. Call me if you’re ever in D.C.”

“You’re going to stay there?”

“For now.” Ben said, evasively. Dameron’s brow quirked.

“You mean you’re going to stay there if she’s there.”

“Poe.” Ben sighed, rocking on the balls of his feet. “You know I can’t.”

Dameron cocked his head. “In three more months you can.”

Ben looked around the crowded airport to avoid eye contact, to avoid betraying how heavy his emotion hung over him. “I wouldn’t even know where to look.”

Dameron scoffed, pulling a folder out of his jacket. “Start here.” He handed Ben the folder. “I did some digging.”

Ben took it, carefully, as if it were made of glass. “You didn’t have to do that.”

“Well.” Poe grinned. “Go get her.” He laughed, and corrected himself. “In three months. Don’t be getting me fired by breaking the terms of your probation.”

“I won’t.” Ben shook his hand one more time, and then walked into the airport.

As soon as he found his seat on the plane, he opened the file.

***

He’d gotten off the plane, and taken a taxi to the hospital. And here he was, sitting at his father’s bedside, feeling like he was looking at a sleeping stranger. Dameron had kept him updated on his father’s condition, over the past nine months. It was the same, week in, and week out. He just lay there, like a shell.

And it was all his fault. Ben leaned forward, head in his hands, elbows braced on his knees. He felt his throat constrict.

“Dad.” He didn’t know why he felt the need to speak out loud. They hadn’t really spoken in years, much less spoken about their feelings, but he was overwhelmed with emotion now, like a little boy. “I’m so sorry, Dad. I should never have left. And I should never have come back.”

“Ben?” He hadn’t expected a response, so the sound of his name, albeit from behind him, made him jump out of the chair and turn.

Rey was standing in the doorway, half hidden behind a vase of flowers. Her eyes were wide, and she inched backwards, away from him, as if she was seeing a ghost. “What are you doing here?”

“Rey.” He said, stupidly. He didn’t know what else to say. “I didn’t know you’d be here.”

Her jaw tightened at that, and her eyes flashed. It made his heart jump. He’d expected to have to track her down, had doubted his ability to do so, but he hadn’t expected her to just walk right up to him an hour after he landed in the city.

And he certainly hadn’t expected her to be _angry_.  She stalked towards him, practically slamming the vase of flowers down. “I’m here _every day_ , Ben. Where the fuck have _you_ been?”

Ben gaped at her. “What the hell, Rey?” He reached for her shoulder and she jerked away.

“Don’t touch me, and _don’t_ call me that.”

“ _What_?”

“Rebecca?” A young, handsome man stepped into the room behind Rey. “Is everything okay?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Many apologies for the delay - I was preoccupied outlining the rest of this story (we are 4-5 chapters out). I am also outlining and beginning a new story which I am SUPER excited about (yes, Reylo, because let's face it I am trash). Please enjoy the rest of this piece, let me know what you think as we go, and - let me know how you feel about medieval/fantasy romance as a genre (because who said AU isn't a diverse medium?).


	18. Chapter 18

“Finn, it’s fine-” Rey addressed the man entering the room. He was dark skinned, with bright white teeth, not tall, but muscular. Ben instinctively looked him up and down, sizing up what he could only assume was competition from the way the man toucher her shoulder.

“Who the fuck is he?” He didn’t even bother trying to mask the accusation. “And why the fuck is he calling you Rebecca?”

“Look, you need to calm down, mate – ”

Ben didn’t even look at the younger man. He was watching Rey’s eyes dart between the two men. “Shut up. Is he your boyfriend?”

Rey blushed, subtly. Then, she seemed to regain her resolve. Her nostrils flared. “None of your business. And you should leave.”

“This _my father._ ” Ben growled at her. “And answer my question.”

"Your father? Your father is in a coma, and you disappeared for  _nine months_." Her voice went shrill. 

"Is this about my father, or about you?" He snapped at her. She flushed, whether with anger, or embarrassment, he didn't know. 

"Get out." 

"You owe me an answer to that question." 

“I don’t owe you anything, Ben Solo.” She withdrew, closer to the man she’d called Finn. “And you need to leave. Your mother is on her way.” She didn’t bother to make the next words less cutting. “And she doesn’t want to see you either.”  

***

The next morning, Ben rolled out of bed. Sleeping in a hotel felt natural now. Her splashed water on his face, examined his stubble and decided to leave it be, yanked on a sweatshirt, pulled up the hood to cover his mussed hair.

His parent’s house was only about a twenty-minute walk from the hotel. He slowed as he approached the townhouse. It looked the way he remembered it – red bricks, blue door, a stately, colonial air. It was on a quiet street a stone’s throw from Capital Hill.

He remembered standing in those windows, as a little boy, and watching his mother walking home from work. It would be late – she was never home by dinner, and it was actually rare that she made it home before his bedtime. The streetlamps would show her trudging down the road, huge briefcase in tow, a distracted look on her face. Fletch, the dog they’d had before Chewie, would sit with him and watch her coming.

He’d meet her at the door, and she’d bend down to kiss his head – as the years went on, she didn’t have to bend anymore. He’d quickly surpassed her height. But by that point he didn’t wait for her to come home, anymore.

Now, his mother was coming out of the house. Ben slunk behind a light pole, watching. She was in characteristic black suit, glasses perched on her nose, folder clutched to her chest. He’d never noticed that she used the rail to go down the stairs, before. She looked older than he remembered.

She didn’t see him.

***

He began to establish a schedule in the next two weeks. He staked out the hospital and found out that Rey only came in the afternoons and evenings. Usually, she was alone. Sometimes, she was with that younger man she’d called Finn. They typically stayed for an hour or two, and parted ways at the entrance. Finn would give her a lingering hug, rubbing her back and sometimes kissing her cheek. That made Ben’s stomach drop out every time, but he managed to bite the inside of his cheeks and stay in the rental car.

Leia usually met Finn and Rey at the hospital in the evening, or came by early in the morning. She’d usually leave with Rey if they were there at the same time, the two walking slowly down the street, strides lined up in a strangely intimate way despite the significant height difference.

Having mapped out their schedules, he made his. The mid-morning became his time to visit Han. He’d bring a sandwich and a coffee and ignore the soft looks the nurses gave him. The first few days, he was quiet. Then, he started to talk while he ate, usually with a mouth full of food. His gestures got more and more animated, the stiller his father seemed to lie. The topic of the day ranged from some childhood memory, to politics, to Rey.

Inevitably, when he left, he would go across the street and settle into his car to watch her come in to the hospital. If she was with Finn, he’d torture himself by waiting until she left and watching her hug Finn. It was masochistic, but it gave him at least some level of control – it was better to see them together than to imagine them together.

After a few weeks of lunch with his father, he decided he needed something else to talk to his father about, so he got a job. His medical license hadn’t been revoked, on the condition that he volunteer an obscene amount of hours at a low income clinic. He found one that was understaffed enough to accept him despite his probationary status, and started to work.

It was very different from working at Touro. He’d been a surgeon, there. Attending was something he’d considered to be only a distraction from surgery, his real passion. At the clinic, he did the most menial work they had. Addicts, broken arms, sexually transmitted diseases, pregnancy tests, and the like took up his entire day. It tested his patience, at first. At first, he thought there was hardly any skill involved. There wasn’t, in the sense that he provided the most basic type of medical care at the clinic. But after a few weeks, he found his capacity for dealing with someone was high out of their mind, or panicking about herpes, or looking for prescriptions because they were addicted, had drastically expanded.

He started to enjoy it, in a self-sacrificial sort of way. It gave him structure, at the least, and human interaction. He probably would had sniffed at and ignored most of the people who came into the clinic, a year ago. Now, he didn’t feel that he had the right to. He may have been a surgeon in his past life, but now he’d been a criminal, like many of patients. He lived in a motel and out of his car now, like they did. He skipped meals, like they had to.

It was two months since he’d spoken to Rey in the hospital room – though he’d seen her, from afar, nearly every day since then – and there was one month left of his probation, before she looked at him.

Ben had left the clinic and gone the hospital. He’d gotten hung up at work – a broken femur that had required a transfer to the emergency room, and, subsequently, soothing a panicking parent who said he couldn’t afford the hospital – and was being careless. He thought he could get in and out of the hospital for a quick visit before Rey or Leia arrived.

He thoughtlessly walked up to the hospital entrance as she was leaving. Rey was leaving, with Finn. He’d wrapped her into a hug, and she'd hugged him back. He was about her height, so she propped her chin on his shoulder, an absentminded look on her face.

That look changed when she spotted Ben, but barely. Her eyes narrowed as he stopped short, muttering curses under his breath. But surprisingly, when she pulled away from Finn, she didn’t say anything.

“I’ll see you tomorrow.” Rey gave him a bright smile. “I’ll bring coffee.”

“Okay, tomorrow.” Finn leaned forward, and Ben noticed, with a smug, sick satisfaction, that she hesitated before letting him kiss her cheek. The younger man walked away, and she lingered for a moment, as if waiting to be sure that he was out of earshot, and really gone, before she turned to Ben.

Her expression shifted from carefully neutral, to pained. “Ben.”

“Yeah.” He lowered his hood, rubbing his hand, embarrassed, across the back of his head. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”

“You didn’t.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “I know you’ve been coming here every day.”

“How -”

“Nurses.” Her lips quirked. “They think you’re my brother or cousin, so they’ve been asking me for your number. You should go out with one of them.”

 “I don’t want to.” Rey flushed, almost imperceptibly. She knew what he meant from the intensity in his gaze – _I don’t want anyone but you_.

“I have to go home.” She said, finally, after a long pause. Ben didn’t respond or move, and she blew out the air in her lungs, exasperated. “ _Goodbye_ , Ben.”

“Let me walk you home.” Ben threw the terms of his probation to the wind. Running into her accidentally, perhaps he could explain away to the FBI. Walking her home, definitely not. He didn’t care. “It’s late.”

“I can take care of myself.” She looked flustered.

“I know.” He followed her as she started down the block, stubbornly. “I just want to talk to you.”

She didn’t say anything for a few minutes, and while he did, in fact, want to talk to her – to ask her where she had been for eleven months, what she had been doing, who Finn was, how his mother was, the list went on and on – he could settle for just looking at her.

Rey looked different, Ben decided. More polished, older. She didn’t look like such a tomboy. She was wearing makeup, and clothes that fit her properly. She’d put on weight and looked more like a woman, and less like a child. There was an air of sophistication and confidence about her that was strange to him. She moved along the street as if she knew who she was and where she was going.

“You’re staring.” She told him, wryly, after a couple blocks.

“You look different.”

“I am different.” Her voice was clipped, as if she didn’t want to break her resolve and speak to him, but couldn’t resist. She turned at the corner, and suddenly Ben realized they were in his mother’s neighborhood.

They didn’t speak again until they were approaching his mother’s house. She fished a key from her messenger bag, studiously ignoring him as she mounted the steps to the brick rowhouse.

“You live here?” Ben pushed his hands into his jeans pockets, staying at the bottom of the steps. Rey looked down at him from the door. She looked as if she wanted to say something, and then thought better of it. When she did speak, it was halting, and polite.

“Your mother has been wonderful to me.” She paused, as if it killed her to thank him. “And if it weren’t for you I would never have met her. So thank you.”

“Rey.” He caught himself. “Rebecca. No – fuck it, _Rey_.”

Her veneer cracked a little bit. “Ben.”

“I’m not supposed to be here.” He went up the steps in two big bounds and grabbed her shoulders, to stop her from disappearing into that house where he was no longer welcome. “I’m not supposed to contact you for another month, but it’s killing me because I’m in lo-”

“Wait.” Rey cut him off, abruptly, a strange look on her face, and Ben realized what he’d just begun to say. There was an awful sinking sensation in his gut when he realized she’d stopped him from saying the thing he wanted, desperately, to say, regardless of the consequences.

“What do you mean, you’re not supposed to contact me?”

Ben faltered, a little relieved that she was ignoring his rash declaration rather than rejecting it. “I thought you knew.”

“No.”

“I’m on probation for twelve months. If I follow the rules, no conviction.”

Several emotions played on her mouth at once. “They just told me you were released. I waited for you. And you never came to find me.”

“I wanted to. I couldn’t.”

She let out a shaky sigh, as if letting go of an emotion she’d kept pent up for months, and then turned away from him, unlocking the door.

“Rey.” He knew how desperate he sounded, but he didn’t care. If she knew why he’d been gone for eleven months, and still wanted nothing to do with him, then this was likely his last chance. “Rey, I need to tell you something.”

The door unlocked, Rey whipped around, and suddenly, she was on him, grabbing his neck to pull his face down to hers, and pulling him into the doorway. Stunned, he didn’t kiss her back for a second. She even felt different – unhesitating, assertive. Her hands were everywhere, one pushing away his unzipped sweatshirt, the other yanking the door shut behind them.

“Rey.” Ben broke away from her, mouth hanging open and panting, feeling dizzy. “I’m trying to tell you something _important_.”

“You just told me you wanted to come back for me.” She kissed him, fiercely enough to bruise his lower lip, tugging at the hem of his t-shirt and pressing her body against his, pinning him to the door. He was fighting a losing battle, both with her singlemindedness and his own arousal. “That’s all I need to know.”

 


	19. Chapter 19

They’d made their way down the hall, slamming against odd surfaces, peeling at each other’s clothing, before Ben remembered the question that had been burning on his lips for two months.

“Wait.” He didn’t take his hands off of her, not sure that he would be able to stop even if he got an answer he didn’t like.

“What?” Her voice was muffled in his neck, little wet kisses being dropped all along the straining tendon there.

“Finn, is he your boyfriend?” He didn’t care that he sounded petty. She looked up, and kissed his chin.

“No.”

“Good.” Ben huffed, sliding his hands under her thighs and picking her up, leaving his shirt and her jacket and bag strewn along the hallway. “Then I don’t have to kill him.”

She laughed, wrapping her legs around his waist as he walked slowly into the guest bedroom at the back of the house, the one facing the garden. He moved blindly, her hands cupping his cheeks, her hair in his face, her lips on his. His memory failed him, and she let out a little _oof_ when they knocked against the doorframe.

He mumbled an apology into her mouth, navigating around the door and into the room, putting a knee tentatively onto the bed and laying her down gently, as if she was made of glass.

Rey seemed to sense what he was thinking, pulling him down on top of her, somewhat awkwardly, and lacing her fingers into his hair. She gave him a crooked smile. “I’m not so fragile anymore.”

He kissed her harder, on the mouth, then on the throat, and then her clothes got in the way. They fumbled together to remove the dress, his hands getting in the way of hers. She eventually let him do it, focusing instead on unbuckling his belt and unfastening his jeans, hooking her feet into them and pushing them down so she could wrap her legs around his bare body.

He was hard against her thigh; when he shifted, his erection pressed against her panties, eliciting a muffled, involuntary noise. He wound his hand down there, feeling an insane urge to just push the piece of fabric aside and push inside her _now._ Her breathy reaction when his hand reached between her legs was enough to make him reconsider.

He snaked down her body, grasping her hips and pushing her up towards the headboard so his mouth was level with her pelvis. He pressed his nose and mouth against her panties, briefly, feeling her shudder. One finger inched around the edge of the fabric and rubbed her folds, making her moan a curse word.

“Ben.” She sounded almost cross. He grinned against her thigh. He remembered when he’d gone down between her legs on her at the lake house, how she’d been reluctant, nervous, undemanding. This was totally different. He could tell he had her on the verge of demanding him that he _start_ already.  He didn’t make her ask.

Her panties were unceremoniously tossed onto the floor, and he sunk down onto her, open-mouthed, kissing and licking until she whimpered his name, hands knotted in his hair, stomach muscles clenching and shuddering. When she finally stilled, breathing hard but no longer arching and twitching under him, he crawled up, dropping chaste kisses on her stomach and sternum. “Do you have anything?”

“Mmph.” She pulled him up to her face, kissing him sloppily. Apparently that was a _no_ , but also a _I don’t care_ , because she was pushing her hips up against him. He grunted, agreeing with her that it didn’t matter. He felt reckless and dangerous enough to have sex with her anyways.

He nudged up against her, chuckling breathily. “I guess if I’m going to break the terms of my probation, I might as well _really_ break them.”

Rey laughed into his mouth, but then sucked in her breath, rapidly, when he pressed inside, and it suddenly wasn’t so funny anymore. He didn’t crack any more awkward jokes, and she didn’t grin at him. She stared at him with an almost unnerving intensity, running her hands over his braced arms until he bowed his head, the eye contact too much for him. His breath came in little huffs against her neck, rhythmically. After a few minutes, they got the same idea at the same time. He shifted on to one arm to snake his newly free arm between their moving bodies, and found her hand there. “Let me.”

She pressed a kiss onto his shoulder and wrapped her arms around his neck, rocking contently up into his hand until she came again, making a soft, mewling noise and going limp and boneless under him. He groaned softly, losing focus and thrusting erratically, wanting what she’d just had. She wrapped her arms around his back, rubbing up and down soothingly.

What he gasped against her cheek - the ultimate confession - as he finished, she didn’t respond to. He didn’t even realize he’d said it until he rolled away from her, resting his hand over his hammering heart. Its frantic beating didn’t slow down as fast as his shallow breathing did, as fast as it should have.

***

“We should talk.” When he finally spoke again, Ben sounded exhausted. He didn’t move from where he was sprawled out on his back, limbs akimbo. In his peripheral vision he saw Rey move her head – she may have been looking up at him from where she lay, tucked into a semi-circle shape against his side, cheek resting on his chest.

“We can talk later. You should probably leave, your mom will be home soon.”

That made him raise his head, snapping him out of his post-orgasmic bliss. “Fuck. What time is it?”

He’d forgotten they were in Leia’s house – in her rarely used guest bedroom, with the door open, no less. Rey had clearly settled into this room – there was a stack of textbooks on the desk, a pile of clothes tossed over the accent chair, and an unmistakable lived-in smell in the room, rather than the dusty, unused smell he was accustomed to this room having. It smelled like sex, now, too, he realized, ruefully, as he rolled off of the bed and searched for his pants.

“It’s seven. She’ll be home before eight.” Rey sat up, gathering the sheets around her. She sat there, silently, watching him dress. The quiet felt almost repressive compared to the sounds that had been filling the room minutes earlier.

When Ben was dressed, he finally made eye contact with her. His gaze dared her to cheapen what had just happened by refusing him. “You said we could talk.”

“Tomorrow. Same time.” She smiled at him, and he felt the knot of anxiety that had been building under his ribs dissipate a little. “We can talk then.”

**

They didn’t talk, at first, of course. They didn’t even make it to her bedroom before he was inside her, breath hot on her face as he thrust into her, up against the wall in the hallway. They ended up in the bedroom, though, and this time with more time to spare before he had to leave.

 “So, if Finn isn’t your boyfriend, what is he?”

She smiled faintly, adjusting her head on the pillow. They were both on their sides, facing each other, the sheet pulled over sweaty skin that was becoming chilled. “That’s really what you want to talk about?”

“It’s one of the things I want to talk about.”

“Finn wants to be my boyfriend.” She closed her eyes, feeling him glare at her a little bit. “You know. We go to lunch once in a while. And he kissed me once.”

“So I do need to kill him.” The joke came out as a threatening rumble, making her crack her eye open.

“No.” She told him, sternly. “I told him I wasn’t ready.”

“Were you?” He challenged her. “Or were you just being nice?”

“Both.” She shifted, uncomfortable now. “We met in group therapy. He was abused by his father. I was… well, you know. I just didn’t think it was a good idea.”

Ben resisted asking the next, natural question – _is this a good idea?_ – and changed topics. “Tell me about therapy.”

She shrugged. “Group three times and week. One-on-one two times a week. Dr. Kanata has been good. I can talk to her about everything.”

“Do you talk to her about me?”

“Yes.” She didn’t elaborate. Ben made a disgruntled noise.

“What do you tell me about me?”

Rey sighed, running her fingers through her hair. “This feels more like an interrogation than a conversation.”

“Fine.” He tugged her over towards him, rolling onto his back and her into his chest. “What do you want to know?”

“I already told you, I know everything I need to know.”

Inexplicably, Ben felt a stab of hurt. “Really? There’s nothing else you want to know?”

“Well,” She traced his collarbone, pensively. “Was there anyone else, for you?”

Ben scoffed. “Are you serious?”

He felt her smile against his chest. “No, I know there wasn’t anyone else. I just don’t have any other questions right now.” She looked up at him. “Don’t look so wounded, Ben.”

Ben struggled to control his facial expression. “I just thought…”

“I think you should go.” She interrupted him, with a brisk kiss on his cheek. “It’s almost eight.”

***

They started having sex almost every day, at the same time.  Every time, they had only had a few hours until Leia was due back from work. Every time, Rey surprised him. The sex got more and more adventurous, but she resisted his efforts at conversation more strenuously every time. Every time, he renewed his efforts, vigorously, on both counts.  

Ben didn’t get very much out of her, usually. Sometimes she told him about what they’d worked on in her sessions with Dr. Kanata. She told him what she was working on his private tutor every day - she was earning her GED, and thinking about university. Sometimes she asked him about the FBI, about Agent Dameron, or about his new job. Those questions were few and far in between.

One night, Leia traveled for work, and Rey let him stay the night. It felt luxurious to stay naked and in bed as the hours ticked by. They ordered a pizza and drank a bottle of wine and had sex again. At two in the morning, she turned on the bedside lamp. He rolled over, bleary-eyed and mussy-haired. Rey was sitting up in bed. “Do you want to talk now?”

She told him she’d found out who her birth parents were. They’d been British. They’d been tourists in the Caribbean. They were dead, now. After their child disappeared, her mother had committed suicide. Her father had died of multiple sclerosis two years ago. The missing person’s report on her had described her wearing a pink backpack monogrammed with her initials – R.E.Y. Rebecca Elizabeth Yeardley was her name. She finished the story, without ceremony, and then wordlessly reached over and turned off the lamp again.

They went back to sleep, curled around each other, and when the sun rose, she was already awake, handing him a coffee, and blandly reminding him that his mother would be home soon.

***

One day, after this had been going on for two weeks, Ben boldly struck out and told her she should come to dinner with him. She raised her brows at him. “You aren’t supposed to be near me.”

“In two weeks.” He pulled her closer. They were lying naked on the couch, watching cartoons. She really had nowhere to go on the sofa but close to him, but her discomfort was palpable. “Have dinner with me in two weeks.”

Her silence was too long. It killed him.

 “Kid.” He had settled on using that old nickname for her. He couldn’t get used to Rebecca. “You awake?”

“I’m awake.” She sat up, reaching for her clothes. Ben sat up, too, crossing his arms over his chest.

“You don’t want to go to dinner with me?”

Her back was to him. “Dr. Kanata doesn’t know about us. Finn doesn’t know. Your mother doesn’t know. And it should stay that way.”

“In two weeks it doesn’t have to be that way.”

“Yes, it does.” She turned around. “Please go, Ben.”

He dressed silently, hands shaking with anger, and stalked towards the door. He had half a mind to leave, and not come back, at least for a few days, until she missed him, until she sought _him_ out.

“Ben.” She sounded plaintive behind him. He turned around. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

He knew he’d be back, tomorrow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is brought to you by a few glasses of wine. I'm basically a sex-writing virgin, guys! This is my first time. So, feedback is much appreciated. PS: In real life, I do *not* advocate unprotected sex, kids. Use condoms.


	20. Chapter 20

It was a week until his probation was over. Ben was getting more and more frustrated with her. One day, he didn’t come over. He didn’t have a cellphone, she didn’t know the address of the hotel he was staying at, and she didn’t come looking at his clinic or in Han’s hospital room.

When he came back, the next day, he didn’t say anything about his absence but Rey could tell he was trying to punish her. His kiss when he came in the door was bruising, and he hardly talked to her while they got undressed and got in bed.

He felt better when she was on her knees, like he’d described to her when they danced that night at the lake house, almost a year ago. She’d been willing to try almost anything, in the last three weeks, but he’d been reluctant to do this. Having sex felt like having sex with a woman his equal. She could give as good as she got. _This_ position had always been about control, and, in a sense, subjugation. That was what he had enjoyed about it.

It felt good to control her, now. He couldn’t control her, in any other way. He couldn’t control the terms of their relationship. But this, he could control. And the fact that she let him control her, and seemed to enjoy it, pressing her hips back to meet him and making small, unmistakable noises, soothed the frustration that had been building up, and his bruised ego.

***

“I’m late.” Rey was still breathing hard when she said it.

“What?” Dazed, he ran his hand down his sweaty chest. “What do you mean, late?”

She rolled onto her side and propped herself up on her elbows. “I mean _late_ , late.”

“How late?”

“Five days.” She pressed her fingers against his chest, a curiously calm look on her face.

Ben stared up at the ceiling, uneasy. They’d thrown caution to the wind the first time they’d had sex, but after that, he’d brought condoms. True, they’d been careless, but what were the odds?

“Are you sure?” He asked, skeptically. She gave him a look. “I’m just saying there are a lot of reasons you could be late.” He scooted closer to her. “I wouldn’t worry about it.”

She didn’t say anything.

As for himself, he did worry about it, as soon as he left Leia’s house. Ben paced up and down the block, pulling at his hair, scowling at passer-byers. It would be terribly inconvenient to get anyone pregnant, but getting _Rey_ pregnant of all people who probably come close to the top of the list of his fuck-ups. He wasn’t supposed to be within two-hundred feet of her, so impregnating her would be difficult to explain to his parole officer, not to mention his mother. _And_ her therapist. He groaned out loud.

If she was pregnant, she’d probably do the sensible thing and terminate the pregnancy, he reassured himself, as he unlocked his motel room. Then again – his mother hadn’t. He flopped down on his lump mattress with a thud and a grunt. He imagined what his father must have felt, thirty years ago, when the twenty-year old poli-sci major he’d been dating for only a few short months declared – and she must have done it in her characteristically authoritative way – that she was pregnant, and she was keeping it, and that was the end of the discussion.

He knew Han had always felt trapped by the accident of his conception and birth. That had never been a secret. It had been a spectre over all his interactions with Ben, and Ben had always resented that inescapable knowledge.

Now, he thought he understood his father a little better.

***

Rey showed up at the clinic the next day, on his lunch break. Ben practically jumped when she came in the door, dropping his sandwich and making a mess. She spotted him and walked over. She’d obviously come straight from tutoring, her messenger bag laden down with textbooks. She looked young to him, suddenly, like she had a year ago. Her faded jeans and sweater and sneakers belonged on a kid in school, not a grown-up. Probably not someone old enough to be having an affair with him, and certainly not someone old enough to be a mother.

“Hey.” He stood up from his desk, wiping his mouth on his sleeve awkwardly. “What are you doing here?”

“I want a pregnancy test.” She looked around before she said it, and used a hushed voice. Ben couldn’t help but smile, despite his anxiety.

“We’re alone, you don’t have to whisper. Staff leaves for lunch.” He saw her relax a little, and realized that she was embarrassed. “You haven’t taken one at home?”

She shifted uncomfortably. “I didn’t… I didn’t want to see the results alone.”

Ben stood up and walked towards an exam room, jerking his chin to indicate she should follow. “You know, a blood test will take about two days for the lab to process. I could maybe get it by tomorrow if I put it on priority, but that’s a long time to wait.”

“Should I just take a urine test?”

Ben counted the weeks as he took out a syringe. “Not as accurate this early. It’s only been three weeks.” He paused for a second. “I’d rather know for sure.”

“Me too.” She set her mouth in a determined line, as if bracing herself for the worst, and stuck out her arm. He drew her blood, feeling her flinch a little. She watched the blood suck up into the syringe.

“That’s it?” She watched him throw away the syringe and strip off his gloves, after he’d sealed the sample and enclosed it in a laboratory bag.

“That’s it.” He studied her for a second. “Are you okay?”

“Yes.” She answered too quickly, then, as if to reassure herself, “I’m okay.” Her hands drifted down to her flat belly, almost involuntarily. “Whatever happens, I’ll be okay.”

He probably should have said something of that nature, Ben realized, as is eyes fixated there, on her stomach. He should comfort and reassure her. But she was – unnervingly – quite calm. Much calmer than he was pretending to be.

“I have to go to therapy.” Rey announced, abruptly – probably noticing his eyes beginning to bulge with barely disguised panic as he looked at her hands on her abdomen –  hopping off of the exam table. “See you after?”

His mouth was a little dry. He tore his gaze away and made eye contact. “I’m not really… in the mood.”

To his surprise, she didn’t look offended. She gave him a soft look that, if he didn’t know better, he could swear was maternal. “We don’t have to jump in bed, Ben. We could just talk.”

He erupted in a barking laugh, engaging in a bit of gallows humor. “Wow, kid. Motherhood has really changed you.”

She smacked him on the back of the head, standing on her tip-toes to do it, but he thought he saw her smile a little bit.

***

They didn’t exactly jump into bed, but they did lay down, fully clothed, shoes on and all, and closed their eyes, drained from adrenaline and anxiety. Her slight weight was comforting and warm pressed into his stomach. Ben dozed off for a little while, his hand slowing and then ceasing to make soothing circles on her hip.

Rey twisted around and nuzzled his neck, making him mumble something and crack one eye open. “Huh?”

“I said, did you talk to Han about this today?”

“Yes.” He knew immediately what she was referencing. “Didn’t say much, but he seemed disappointed. He doesn’t think he’s old enough to be a grandpa.”

Rey pulled a face. “Very funny, Ben.”

“I don’t think I’m old enough to be a dad, either.” He told her, pointedly, not joking anymore. She avoided his gaze.

“We’ll see.” He had the uneasy feeling that she didn’t mean they’d find out, soon, whether she was pregnant. They fell back into silence, this time less companionable, and more awkward.  She was the one to break the silence, saying, softly, “So you were lying. I really should be worried.”

He stared at the ceiling. “You shouldn’t worry. It’s probably nothing.”

“You’re worried.” She told him, almost sharply, accusatorily.

“It’s my job to worry about you.” He snorted. “Doesn’t mean it’s rational.”

Rey practically beamed at that, and he was reminded that this was probably the closest he’d come, since his unrequited declaration of love the first time they’d slept together, to expressing any affection verbally. She’d always seemed too distant for that, and his fear of rejection was too strong.

“Can I help you relax a little?” She said, suggestively, wiggling her eyebrows. Ben rolled his eyes, feigning annoyance.

“I tell you I’m not up to it today, and this is what you do? Lull me into a false sense of security and then…” He cleared his throat, going hoarse when she nuzzled her emerging bulge in his pants.

“You seem up to it to me.” Rey teased, unzipping. He didn’t bother telling that his reticence hadn’t been physical, but emotional. This waiting game felt too emotionally fraught to be engaging in intimate behavior. He was too wound up, too stressed, and he knew how that translated in the bedroom. She needed comforting, sweet sex, and he didn’t think that was something he was capable of at the moment.

But her mouth was warm and soft and rhythmic, and she changed his mind. Ben pulled her up to straddle his waist, feeling her warm moisture pooling on his abdomen and realizing she wasn’t wearing underwear. “Fuck.”

He reached, around her, for the nightstand drawer, fumbling around for a foil packet.

She made an exasperated noise. “You can’t exactly get me pregnant twice.”

“Let’s not assume the worst.” He grumbled, ignoring her and finding what he was looking for. “You might not be pregnant.”

He might have imagined it, but she blanched a little when he said that. “Would it really be the worst thing ever?”

“Yes.” He told her, matter-of-factly, reaching up, smoothing her hair away from her cheek and pulling her down to kiss her. She pulled away.

“You don’t ever want to have children?”

“No.” Ben told her, flatly. “Having me was probably the worst thing that ever happened to my parents. I’m not a glutton for punishment.”

Rey flinched. “But…”

“Besides,” Ben kept his tone firm, leaving no room for argument, even if she was sitting on top of him _very_ persuasively. “You should know better than anyone that the world is a terrible place to raise a child.”

“It doesn’t have to be.” Rey resisted his attempt to penetrate her. He exhaled, frustrated both with having to defend his position on fatherhood, and with the fact that he wasn’t inside her yet.

“I’m not really willing to take that risk.” He gripped her hips to keep her still. “Do you still want to have sex, or do you think I’m a heartless monster now?”

She didn’t answer, but she leaned forward and kissed him, letting him push into her.

***

Her phone rang, just a few minutes later. She felt his thrusts lag for a second, and then he said, raggedly, “Don’t answer it.”

Rey looked at the bedside table, planting her hands on her chest to steady herself. The touchscreen of her phone was lit up, telling her who the caller was. It showed a picture she and Leia had taken together at Christmas, at the hospital. They’d brought dinner in to-go boxes and exchanged gifts and sung carols in Han’s room, to the nurses’ delight. One of them had snapped the picture, of them, wearing Santa hats and wrapping their arms around each other. That was her first Christmas, that she could remember, and she’d blinked back tears of joy the entire night. “It’s your mom.”

“Rey,” He sounded pained. “Please never say those words while I’m inside you.”

She snorted, despite herself, detangling herself from his limbs and reaching for the phone. “Leia?”

Ben groaned and rolled over, burying his head in the pillow. His mother had legendarily bad timing – she’d turned on the lights in the garage, pointedly, without saying a word, but absolutely knowing what she was doing, when he’d been on the verge of losing his virginity in the backseat of car.

“Ben?” Rey had hung up the phone. She looked stunned, pale, all the pleasure-flush gone from her cheeks and neck. “We need to go to the hospital.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I told you guys, use protection! So, is her eggo preggo, or nah? And what's the sudden emergency at the hospital? Stay tuned, and let me know what you think. I'm really enjoying bringing this story to its close, and enjoying all your feedback immensely.


	21. Chapter 21

Ben watched his mother embrace Rey from between the blinds on the glass window into his father’s hospital room. The two women held each other for a long time. Han’s bed was empty, behind them. If he hadn’t known better, from the scene before him, he would think his father was dead.

But Rey had told him, in the car, that his father had woken up. That was about all they’d said in the car – his hands were white-knuckled on the steering wheel. They’d cleaned themselves up in silence and he hadn’t asked permission to come to the hospital, even though he knew his mother would be there.

“Excuse me.” Ben hailed the nurse. “Where’s my father?”

“MRI.” The nurse told him, crisply. “Should be out in an hour or two. We’re making sure the neurological functions are intact.” She started to walk away, and then stopped, and added, “Very happy for your family.”

Ben didn’t answer her, looking back through the blinds at Rey and Leia. Leia was crying, but smiling, her hands cupping Rey’s cheeks. She said something, and Ben perceived an acute shift in Rey’s posture. The younger woman drew back, forcing a smile, and then seemed to make an excuse, backing away. Leia sank down onto the bed, perching there nervously, fingering the now folded up bedclothes.

Ben glanced at the door as Rey emerged. “What was that?”

“Nothing.” She evaded eye contact, moving down the hallway. Ben followed her. “You should talk to her.”

“I think I’ll wait until my father’s back from the MRI, she can’t possibly kill me in front of him.” Ben said, sourly, punching buttons in the elevator. “Where are we going?”

“Cafeteria. Your mom hasn’t had dinner either.” Rey went silent as more people joined them in the elevator. Ben watched her, almost suspiciously. She was holding something back, but her mouth betrayed her. She was biting her lips and pressing them together and twisting them with the effort of not saying anything.

As they collected cardboard containers of soup and cracker packets, she finally cracked. “Leia offered to adopt me.”

Ben dropped the soup he was holding and the cardboard cut split, spraying everywhere. Everyone in the cafeteria turned and looked at them, but he didn’t bother dropping to his knees to clean up the soup. “Excuse me?”

Rey made an exasperated noise and grabbed napkins, hunching down to clean up the tomato-soup splatter.  “She was waiting to see if Han would wake up. If he did, he needed to sign the papers too, to make it official. If he didn’t, then she could adopt me on her own.”

Ben gaped at her, still too stunned to help her clean up the mess. “ _Adopt_ you?”

“Yes.” She stood up, hands on her hips. “Are you going to help me with this or what?”

Ben ignored her. “You went along with this plan? Even thought you were fucking her son?” Ben sputtered. Rey flushed deeply.

“Yeah, well, I didn’t _plan_ on fucking her son.” She snapped. “I didn’t think you’d ever come back.”

“Wait.” Ben held up his hands, a realization dawning on him. “Is that why you don’t want anyone to know about us? Because you plan on becoming my adoptive sister?”

Rey turned a deeper shade of red, if that was possible, her cheeks suddenly matching the tomato soup spilled all over their shoes. “I hadn’t made up my mind yet. I wasn’t sure how you fit into all of this.”

“What the hell do you mean? I’m their son! That’s how I fit in!” Ben slammed a fresh cup of soup in front of the woman at the cashier. She blinked at him, and he made a face. “Sorry, sorry. Keep the change.”

They walked back to the elevator in terse silence, neither looking at each other.

“I didn’t want to tell you.” Rey said finally, once they were alone in the elevator.

“Well, that would have made Christmas awkward.” Ben grumbled, slightly calmer. She almost cracked a smile, but she looked tearful.

“You don’t come home for Christmas, Ben.” They were silent again, for a few beats, and then she added, “I was going to say yes, before you came back.”

“What changed?”

“Leia offered me everything I ever wanted.” Her voice cracked. “But then you came back and there was something else I wanted. And I can’t have _both_.”

The elevator dinged, and Ben swallowed his reply. He wasn’t even sure what he was going to say, in any case.

They walked slowly back down the hall, and then Ben’s steps slowed to a stop. “Oh, no.”

Leia marched down the hall towards him, looking for all the world like a miniature hurricane. “ _Benjamin_.”

Ben instinctively shrank behind Rey. “Fuck.”

“Benjamin.” She split up the syllabus like drum beats. “What the fuck are you doing here?”

 _Language, Ben_. A memory flashed back to him and a near-hysterical laugh bubbled to his lips. “Hi, Mom.”

“Don’t _hi Mom_ me.” Leia practically shrieked.

Rey intervened, mercifully. “He came with me.”

Leia’s eyes darted between the two of them. “What?”

 “Mom.” Ben started, and then stopped, and started again. “Mom.”

“We were together when you called.” Rey said, her admission stilted.

“Rebecca…” Leia turned to Rey, brow creasing. She looked almost betrayed.

“I’m sorry.” Rey looked tearful, now. “But I knew Han will want to see him.”

Leia struggled for a second, and then nodded, deflating a bit. “Fine.”

She turned on her heel and went back into Han’s room. Rey and Ben exchanged a look – half relief and half apprehension – and then followed her, meekly, into the room.

The three of them sat, in silence, slurping their soup and nibbling crackers. Ben and Rey made intermittent eye contact every few seconds, and Leia caught them a couple times, her frown deepening each time. After she caught Rey grinning a little bit, she set down her spoon loudly.

“Stop that.” She said, finally, crossly.

“Mom.” Ben cleared his throat. “You can’t adopt Rey. Rebecca. Whatever.”

“Ben.” Rey turned red. “ _Don’t_.”

“Why not?” Leia looked like she already knew the answer, and of course she did. She rarely asked questions she didn’t already know the answers to.

“Because we’re sleeping together.” Ben kept his tone as professional as possible, as if he was explaining something to a patient.

“Since when?” Leia glared at him in a way that made him feel fourteen again.

“Three weeks.” Rey said, weakly.

“You’ve been in the city for three weeks and you didn’t _say_ anything?” Leia exploded again, making the two younger people flinch.

“What the hell, Mom?” Ben held up his arms as if fending off an attack. “You’re the one who didn’t want to see _me_.”

“Of course I wanted to see you!” Leia blurted it out, almost as if she couldn’t stop herself. Her characteristically dignified manner was shattered in that moment. “You’re my son. I’ll always want you.”

Ben faltered, surprised by her transparency. His mouth opened and closed for a couple moments, and then he croaked, “Why did you tell your lawyer that you didn’t want to see me?”

Her eyes pooled. “I just wasn’t ready. I thought I was going to lose your father.”

Ben nodded, locking his hands and looking down at the floor to give his mother a moment to compose herself. He heard her clear her throat, and then her voice was crisp again.

“So, is this back on again?”

Ben looked up. Leia was waggling her finger between him and Rey. He flushed. Before he could answer, Rey did. “No.”

“Not _yet_.” Ben clarified. Leia’s lips quirked, and she looked almost smug. Before she could make a smart-ass comment that would have doubtlessly made Han proud, the click-click sound of the wheels of a gurney became audible.

“Han.” Whatever inappropriate comment she’d been about to make forgotten, Leia leapt to her feet.

Ben stood more slowly, approaching the gurney as it wheeled into the room.

Han’s eyes were a little glassy, but they were bright, moving around the room at a feverish speed. They stopped when they landed on Ben, and he smiled, as if with great effort. “Hi, son.”

“Hey, Dad.” Ben’s voice cracked, painfully, and he stepped closer, resting his large hand on his father’s atrophied arm. “How are you feeling?”

“Old.” His father groaned, closing his eyes momentarily. “Has your mother left me yet?”

Ben snorted, as his mother elbowed past him to grasp his father’s hand. “Han. Han, it’s me.”

“Hey, princess.” Han slurred a little. “You look good.”

“Mrs. Organa?” His doctor prompted, gently. “Can we talk outside for a moment?”

Leia looked torn, clearly not wanting to let go of Han’s hand. Rey patted her shoulder. “I’ll stay with him.”

Ben followed his mother and the doctor out into the hallway, resisting to the urge to ask for the technical breakdown of his father’s prognosis and use medical jargon. He recognized that it probably wasn’t his place, and waited, crossing his arms over his chest.

“He has some memory loss.” The doctor began.

***

Rey awkwardly sat down in a chair next to Han, fiddling with zipper of the hoodie she was wearing.

“That’s my son’s jacket.” Han informed her, noticing her fingers playing with the zipper.

So it was, Rey realized. In their hurry to get dressed, she’d grabbed his hoodie rather than her winter coat. Lamely, she responded, “Yeah, it is.”

“So, are you his new girlfriend?” Han drew his bushy brows together.

Inexplicably, Rey’s stomach plummeted. He didn’t remember her – not from the days at the lake house, and – obviously, although she attributed great meaning to them – not from her daily visits to his bedside, when she talked to him, read to him, or played jazz on her phone for him.

“Um, I’m…” Rey’s breath hitched. “I’m Rebecca. I’ve been staying with Leia while you were sleeping.” It seemed much simpler to explain it that way.

“But you’re dating Ben?” He looked confused, and tired.

“Not exactly.” She squirmed. “We’re… friends.”

“Ben needs a girlfriend.” Han intoned, so seriously she smiled a little. “He always had a stick up his ass. Needs to loosen up.”

“He’s a good friend.” She sounded unintentionally emotional when she said it.  

“How’s Chewie?” Mercifully, he changed the subject.

 “Chewie’s great. I take him for walks around the tidal basin every Saturday.”

Han looked pleased by that. “Good.” He shifted in his bed. “Thank you, Rebecca.”

“For what?”

“For taking care of my family, while I was gone.” He closed his eyes. “I’m going to nap, now.”

***

When Ben came back into the room, Rey practically shoved her way past him to leave. He caught her wrist, half-joking, “What, did my father finally make his move on you?”

“I have to take care of something.” Her face was very red, and she wrenched her wrist out of his grip. “Talk to your father, Ben.”

“Rebecca.” He stopped her, again, this time grabbing her bicep, more gently, and pulling her back in. “You’re not leaving?”

“No.” She shook her head, looking inexplicably sad. “No, I’ll be back in just a second. Go be with your family.”

He watched her walk quickly down the hall, and then break into a run, and had the sinking suspicion that she wouldn’t come back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My friends, we are almost at the end. As always your feedback is so appreciated. I am going to hate saying goodbye to these characters and this world in the next chapter, but I think you're going to love where I leave them.


	22. Chapter 22

Rey walked slowly back to Han’s room, almost dreading what she would see there. She wrapped her arms around herself, inhaling the particularly masculine scent that clung to the borrowed hoodie, and leaned against the glass window, peering in.

Ben had felt like an outsider, watching from this same vantage point as Leia hugged Rey, just an hour ago. He’d been the one lingering outside, afraid to come in. Now, she was the one standing outside, watching the family inside, and knowing, acutely, that she didn’t belong.

From the moment she had met this family, they’d been estranged, tense, and angry. It had seemed easier, at times, for Han and Leia to love her than their own son. That had allowed Rey to seamlessly slip into the folds of the family, becoming Leia’s confidant and mentee, the willing listener to Han’s jokes, and then his caretaker, and, of course, Chewie’s favorite source of belly rubs. She’d taken on the role that Ben had left empty, in some ways.

Now, he was sitting on the edge of his father’s bed, grinning boyishly, finally having the first two-way conversation with his father in months. Leia was perched on the arm of the chair, her arm draped possessively over his shoulders. They looked complete – tired, pale, but complete.

She turned, and walked away.

***

“Rebecca!” Ben had followed her, of course, out onto the street. He approached, looking faintly accusatory.  “You said you’d come back.”

“I don’t want to intrude.” She put on a tone that was falsely cheerful. “I’ll just go.”

“You aren’t intruding.” His brow creased. “Leia and Han want you here.”

Her smile faded a bit. “Han doesn’t remember me.”

“I want you here.” He reached for her arm, and she jerked it away, surprising him with the violence of her movements when she was obviously trying to maintain the appearance of calm.

“I’m not pregnant.” Her next words were equally abrupt, as if she was using them to lash out.

Ben grunted. “We don’t know that yet.”

She flushed, shifting on her feet, arms crossed and playing with the lose fabric on the elbows of the hoodie. “I’m not. I was late. But it, uh, it just came.”

“Oh.” Ben couldn’t help the relief that tinged his voice. “Okay. Good.”

“Yeah.” There was that false cheeriness again, belied by a suspicious shininess in her eyes. “I’m going to go, then.”

He was successful when he grabbed at her arm this time. “You’re disappointed.”

She hesitated too long before opening her mouth to deny it. “No –”

“You _are_.” Ben couldn’t keep the incredulity out of his voice. “You wanted to have a baby?”

Her façade dropped. “I wanted to have a _family_.”

Ben opened and closed his mouth a few times. “I don’t understand.”

She struggled for a moment. “If we had a baby… I’d always belong to your family, in a way. You and me couldn’t grow apart. Leia and Han wouldn’t just wake up one morning and not want to help me or see me anymore.”

Ben ran his hand through his hair, a twist of guilt surprising him in his gut. “Were you trying, then? To get pregnant?”

“No.” She denied it, emphatically, and he believed her. But then, her expression softened, and she said, watery-eyed, “It would have been a wonderful accident, though.”

He let her mourning for what might have been wash over his unabashed relief. He’d resented and distanced himself from his family; she’d longed for it. It was uncomfortable to empathize with her longing – it was foreign to him. But with the discomfort came some clarity – this admission helped him understand her better, or rather, understand what she wanted from him. It was the question he’d been puzzling over for weeks, and now, he thought, he had the answer.

She wanted to belong to him, and to his family. She wanted a _certainty_ that she belonged. A baby would have accomplished that, but he still thought he could give her what she wanted. In that moment, he would have given her anything she wanted. He cupped her cheek, rubbing away a stray tear with his thumb. “Don’t cry, Rebecca. Come back inside.”

“Rebecca still doesn’t feel right to me.” Rey admitted, leaning slightly towards him as if she might follow him inside, or anywhere he went, really. “I like the name you gave me, better.”

He bent and kissed the tip of her nose, then wrapped an arm around her, pulling her back towards the doors of the hospital. “Rey. Then I can just call you that.” He gave her sideways look. “You can always change your name.”

Rey scoffed. “No. Rey Yeardly is terrible.”

“Rey Solo isn’t bad.”

She smacked him on the back of the head, half in jest, but half angry at him for dangling in front of her something she desperately wanted and now knew she couldn’t have. “Don’t.”

“I mean it.” He caught her hand as they walked inside. “I think you should.”

“So you changed your mind about Han and Leia adopting me?” She gave him a crooked, sad smile, knowing that dream was likely dead. Even if Leia did not retract it, Rey could not accept it.

Ben groaned, punching the button to call the elevator. “Christ. No. That’s _not_ what I meant.”

She laughed, and then choked on the laugh, seeing that he looked rather serious, and realizing his implication. “ _Oh_.”

“One day.” He said, hastily, pinking, as they stepped into the elevator. “If you want to.”

“You don’t seem like marrying type.” She sounded breathless.

“Neither do you.” They were alone in the elevator, it seemed, so he pulled her into his arms, impulsively, and kissed her fiercely. “But you’re my family. _Our_ family. There’s no way in hell I’m going to ever think of you as my sister, so you’re going to have to marry me.”

***

Rey did legally change her name, but it wasn’t for another five and a half years.

She remained a fixture in Han and Leia’s house for six months, helping Han around the house. That sparked an interest in her, and when she had her GED in hand, she announced she was going to become a therapist. Helping Han re-learn how to function in the world had been surprisingly fulfilling for her. She herself had to learn how to be a person again, after the Solos had rescued her from her old life, and she found she loved being able to pass that on to someone else. In any case, Han’s sense of humor was completely intact, and he kept her laughing constantly as they went on walks, cooked, and read together.

She enrolled in classes at George Washington University, and even though it was just across the National Mall, less than three miles from Han and Leia’s house – and they implored her to stay – she moved out. Han and Leia’s disappointment turned to glee when they found out she wasn’t moving into a dorm or a cheap apartment, but into an apartment Ben had bought between campus and his clinic.

Agent Dameron had transferred to D.C., and he helped them move boxes into the cramped apartment in exchange for a couch to sleep on for a few days. If he suspected Ben’s probation-breaking antics, he kept his mouth shut about it. The apartment was small and old – even once his volunteer hours were complete, his salary at the clinic was fairly modest, and he, for some reason, had no desire to leave and go back to a big hospital – and they had no furniture or photographs, but it was their place to fill and decorate.

When Poe left, having secured a studio a few blocks away, they weren’t alone for long. Bee Bee took up residence with them. He was a stray orange tabby, as ornery as he was fat – although he cried pitifully for food, and that was how they’d discovered him – but Rey instantly adored him. Ben protested mightily for three days, until he came home to the apartment, still full of unpacked boxes and hand-me down furniture from his parents, to find Rey sprawled on the couch. She was asleep, Bee Bee on her chest, purring and kneading contentedly – and that was that.

Rey was still a regular visitor at Han and Leia’s house on the Hill. Chewie, she insisted, would always be her favorite pet, but Bee Bee became her constant shadow. She finished her Bachelors degree in three years, and barreled on towards a Master’s, studying late nights with Bee Bee curled around her feet and Ben’s jazz music filtering into the study from the living room. She attacked her schoolwork with a single-minded fierceness, having privately set its completion as a kind of milestone in her head. She’d long since let go of the fear that she needed a baby or a marriage to anchor herself into the family, but Ben reminded her that the offer to change her last name was open, from time to time. She’d wrinkle her nose and tell him she needed to finish school, but that private countdown of months was always in her head.

In the summers, they went to the lake house for weeks at a time. When Chewie died, they buried him out there, and, on their next trip, brought the new puppy – a boisterous rescue named Rouge. The summer before Rey finished her Masters degree, Leia and Ben were companionably washing dishes at the lake house, Leia scrubbing, Ben drying. They were both watching out the window while Han and Rey tried to teach Rogue the very complex concept of _fetch._ Leia said, off-handed, “You know, it would be nice to have kids up here at the lake house again.”

To his infinite surprise, as he looked out the window, watching Rey laughing and chasing the puppy on the lakeshore, Ben silently agreed with his mother. So, when seven months later, Rey told him over breakfast that she wanted to have a baby in the next year, after graduation, he just kissed her and told her she’d have to – finally – marry him first.

It was a few months before graduation, but the cherry blossoms were in their full splendor, and it was a beautiful day. It seemed like the right day. After he got out off of work, they went to the courthouse – running to get there before it closed – with Dameron and Finn as their witnesses. From there, they ran again, this time to Han and Leia’s, to tell them the good news. They pretended to be upset that they didn’t get to plan a big wedding, but Leia held Rey closer than she ever had, whispering that she finally had her daughter, and Han smoked a cigar with Ben, and Ben and Rey knew they weren’t upset.

It was at the courthouse, that day, that she had become Rey Solo – the clerk raised her eyebrows when she said she wasn’t just changing her surname, but he gave her the paperwork – and she didn’t even flinch as she filled out the form.

“No second thoughts?” Sitting beside her at the bench in the courthouse, Ben gave her a nervous grin.

“No. You?” Rey didn’t wait for an answer, filling in her new name in neat, precise letters. She thought of that expression Dr. Kanata always told her – it was on a poster in the office where she still went to weekly therapy. “You know what Dr. Kanata always tells me? _Life is not about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.”_ She signed her name with aplomb. “Well, this is the final touch. My new name.”

“So you’re done creating yourself?” A smile tugged on his lips. She impulsively leaned over and kissed them, feeling his smile, and then pulled away, and corrected him. 

 “Re-creating myself.” She grinned. "Like me?"

"No, love you." He stood up, and held out his hand. "Let's go tell the family, Mrs. Solo."

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Look I'm SORRY that got so fluffy, I just couldn't help myself. These kiddos deserved some happiness in the end, and I thought we all deserved a bit of an epilogue, too. I hope you enjoyed the ride - I did! - and I really hope you'll check out my next story, which I plan on publishing in the next day or two! 
> 
> Comments are love. Thanks for everything.


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